Applying to Real-World Applications - Essentials of Interactive Computer Graphics - page 139

Figure 6.1. Understanding PowerPoint using the MVC implementation framework.
screenshot of a slide creation session using the PowerPoint application is shown
at the left of Figure 6.1. The right side of Figure 6.1 shows how we can apply the
implementation framework to gain insights into the PowerPoint application. The
MainUIWindow at the right of Figure 6.1 is the GUI window of the entire applica-
tion, and it contains the GUI elements that affect/echo the entire application state
(e.g., main menu, status area). We can consider the MainUIWindow as the mod-
ule that contains the TheModel component and includes the four view/controller
pairs.
Recall that TheModel is the state of the application and that this component
contains all the data that the user interactively creates. In the case of PowerPoint,
the user creates a collection of presentation slides, and thus TheModel contains all
the information about these slides (e.g., layout design style, content of the slides,
notes associated with each slide). With this understanding of the TheModel com-
ponent, the rest of the application can be considered as a convenient tool for pre-
senting TheModel (the view) to the user and changing TheModel (the controller)
by the user. In this way, these convenient tools are precisely the view/controller
pairs (e.g., ViewController components from Figure 5.3).
In Figure 6.1, each of the four view/controller pairs (i.e., OverviewPane ,
WorkPane , StylePane ,and NotesPane ) supports the changing of different as-
pects of the TheModel component.
• OverviewPane . The view component displays multiple consecutive slides
from all the slides that the user has created; the controller component sup-
ports the user scrolling through all these slides and selecting one for editing.