In order to use Visual Logic you must have the PIN number that came with your book package. It comes in a brown Course Technology envelope. Inside the envelop is a piece of paper that has the address of visual logic (www.visuallogic.org). On the homepage you'll see the following sentence above the bottom navigation. Download Version 2.0 now by clicking here. Click the "here" to go to the visual logic download page. Once there you need to provide them specific information about yourself including the PIN that came with the book. When you hit the Submit button the signature file that you will need to use the visual logic software will be emailed to the email address you provided to them. My recommendation is that you save that signature file to several places because you need it to run the software. Place it on your usb drive so along with the visual logic software so you can use it anywhere you find a computer. Also save it on your hard drive and perhaps even email it to yourself via campus cruiser so you'll always have that file. You also must download the visual logic software. You can do it by clicking here. You don't have to install the software. You run the program by double clicking on it. I recommend that you copy the .exe file to your desktop and to your usb drive. If you do not have a signature file because you purchased your books used you can still use Visual Logic. You just won't be able to safe your file. At the end of this lesson I have the instructions on how "save" your work so you can submit it without a signature file.
When you first start the program you only have a Start and a End box on your screen. In order to add a flow chart symbol to it you must click the arrow between the boxes. When you do, all the different flowcharting objects are revealed for you to pick. It looks like this:
You always do your flowchart from the human algorithm (which is done from the problem statement). Suppose we had this algorithm:
When you add an Input box you have to tell it the name of the variable that the input will be stored in. The variable names you create for your flowchart will be the same ones you will be using for your data dictionary that we will be creating after the flowchart.
You use the "Assignment" box for calculations. You have to provide two things. First, the name of the place in memory (variable) you want to restore the result and then the calculation you want to "assign" do that variable name you wanted created. For our assignment box we used poundsperinch=weight/height.
You use the If condition box to make a decision. In this flow chart symbol we provide the comparison we want it to make. In this case we want to know if the poundsperinch is less than 1. We use this syntax: poundsperinch < 1
Finally, we have the output symbol. In this symbol we have to indicate what is out put to the user. In this case we just have text. The important thing to remember is that you must place text within quotes. For the first output box we had "You are too skinny". In the final output we want to join text with a variable. The text is "your pounds per inch are " (notice the quotes and the space at the end so that the output has an extra space in it. We had a text string, then the join symbol and then the variable that held the poundsperinch.
Start the Visual Logic software and create the flow chart. When you are done press the "play" button (has the > symbol) to see how it runs.
1. You need to press the restore button (middle button at the top
corner of the window) if your visual logic is taking up the whole screen
2. You might need to also reduce the size of the flowchart. You can
do that with the + and - buttons or the dropdown with percentage options:
3. Press the print screen button on your keyboard. It will say PrtScn.
4. Open up MS Paint from your Accessories Group.
5. Click on the edit menu and choose Paste. This will place a picture of your desktop into Paint.
6. Use the "Select" Tool to draw a box around only your flowchart and right mouse click and choose copy.
7. Click on the File menu and choose New.. Do not save the old file.
8. Click on Edit, then Paste to paste in the picture of your flowchart you copied in 6 above. Then save the file as a .jpg file. You can then place it in a word document with your problem statement and your human algorithm.
As an alternative to the last step, you can just paste the picture into the word document with your problem statement and human algorithm. This will make your word document much larger but safe you a step.