Labs/Bespin/UserGuide/Tutorial
The tutorial is meant to be a quick guide to Bespin, so you can get started in short order. A more detailed guide is available as the core User Guide
Contents
Registering for Bespin
To register and begin using the Bespin project, click the "Register for Bespin" button on the Bespin home page. A panel will appear in the middle of your browser window. We only ask for a username, password, and valid email address to register for the Bespin project.
After filling in the information, you can begin using Bespin right away.
Unsupported Browser Error
| Supported Browsers |
|---|
| Bespin has been tested to support the following browsers: Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, and Chrome 3. |
If your browser does not support the HTML 5 canvas element, instead of a registration panel, a short message informing you of this incompatibility will appear. If you want to use Bespin, you will have to switch to a supported browser.
A quick look at the UI
The user interface for Bespin has been kept simple to facilitate ease of use and keep your focus on the code you're writing, rather than a flashy interface.
Header bar
At the top of the Bespin window is the header bar, which contains various buttons for accessing important functions, as well as information about the current project and file.
At the far left of the bar is a link to the Bespin home page, followed by the name of the current project and current file. If the current file has been edited since the last time it was saved, the project and file will be separated by a circle; if no changes have been made, they will be separated by a dash. A similar representation is also visible in the title of the window, allowing you to see if the file is saved at a glance from your browser tabs.
The first two menu buttons in the header bar allow you to navigate to the other two main parts of the Bespin interface: the Command Line and the File Explorer. The following pair of buttons are oriented toward the actual development process, and they allow you to save your work on the current file and view it in you browser. The final button switches between the three levels of text magnification that the Bespin interface currently supports.
On the far right of the header bar are two final elements. The version identifier links to the Release Notes pages for all Bespin versions. Next to that is an icon that enables Collaboration. Collaboration is currently a beta feature, but it is working in the supported browsers.
Editor
Command Line
Typing help in the command line should get you going
