The freecoffee editor: Using natural language sentence structure to make blocks more readable

Abstract

One aspect that increases the accessibility of many blocks-based languages is their use of labels to tell users the meaning of the input-slots in the blocks. In this regard, every block is a little form. FreeCoffee is a blocks-based language whose editor goes well beyond terse slot labels and communicates the meaning of a block using complete grammatical sentences. These sentence-blocks still contain input-fields and drop-down menus for user-input, and will, in response to user input, adapt both their structure and their wording to keep the sentence grammatically correct. Sentences structure can also be changed in order to add optional features to the block. This sentence-oriented blocks-editor was designed for a domain specific language used in a multimedia design course. The abstractions and semantics of this language are far removed from mainstream scripting languages, and some of its structures were complex. Still, the language interface helped to enable students with almost no training to create interactive multimedia productions.