Working with projects

All work in Tree Builder is carried out within a project. A Tree Builder project contains the trees you have drawn as well as the grammar you have specified. All of this is saved within a single project file which Tree Builder stores with a .lgram extension.

When you start Tree Builder for the first time it will start a new project with a default name. Subsequently, it will open the project that was opened when the application was last closed.

The File menu provides the functionality to start a new project, open an existing project, close a project, save a project, save a project with a new name, and to print the contents of a project.

Creating a new project

To create a new project select File|New Project or the

New Project button on the toolbar, which will create a new project with a default name. You may be prompted to save your changes if you have been working on another project. The desktop, the grammar, trees and comments panes will be cleared. You can add rules to create a grammar, draw trees and save the grammar and trees as a new project. When the project is saved you will be prompted to provide a new name and location for the project file.

Saving a project

When you are working on a project, you can save it to the suggested location or to a directory of your choice. By default, Tree Builder saves projects to the directory where the application was installed. To save your work on a project select File|Save Project or the

Save Project button on the toolbar. If this is the first time the project has been saved, choosing File|Save Project will have the same effect as choosing File|Save Project As which will display a typical save file dialog for you to choose the name and location of the project. All modifications to the grammar and the trees will be saved.

Opening an existing project

To open an existing project select File|Open Project or the

Open Project button on the toolbar which will display a typical open file dialog for you to choose a Tree Builder project (*.lgram) file. You may be prompted to save your changes if you have been working on another project. The desktop will be cleared and the grammar, trees and comments panes will be updated for the opened grammar.

Closing a project

To close a project select File|Close Project. You may be prompted to save your changes if you have made changes to the project. The desktop, the grammar, trees and comments panes will be cleared.

Printing the contents of a project

To print the contents of a project select File|Print Selection which will bring up the Print Selection dialog from which you can choose which items (rules and trees) in the project you would like to print. Each of the trees selected will be printed on a separate page.
The current tree on the desktop can also be printed by choosing File|Print or the

Print button on the toolbar.

Print Selection

Note: The print operation will first try to print a tree in a portrait orientation. If the tree will not fit, it will choose the best orientation (portrait or landscape) for the tree and fit the tree on the page. The user can affect the size of the printed tree by changing the layout of the tree or adjusting the font size. Adjusting the zoom will have no affect on the printing.