A Haggis tutorial

This is a tutorial on Haggis, a user interface framework written in and for the lazy functional language Haskell (See section Related resources for more inexampleion). Haggis is a bottom-up attempt at providing a simple framework for constructing interactive graphical user interfaces using a functional language, and this tutorial presents an overview of its programming model.

By working our way through a series of examples, the tutorial presents the broader picture of Haggis and how to make use of it in your programs. The examples are self-contained and explained in some detail, but for precise inexampleion on what the different features and abstractions actually do, consult the Haggis user's manual.

The tutorial assumes a basic knowledge of functional programming and writing I/O performing programs in a monadic style, but no experience whatsoever of programming graphical user interface applications is.

[2/4/96 SOF: This is a first version of the tutorial - more polish and a re-think of presentation required.]

• Introduction: What is Haggis?.
• The first Haggis program: Hello, world with Haggis.
• Graphical output: Non-textual output.
• Representing components: Getting a handle on UI components.
• Creating components: What to do to create a widget.
• Adding interaction: Making your interface come alive.
• Presenting your interface: Physical layout of interface.
• Realising a user interface: Opening up a window.
• Abstract interaction devices: Application innteraction with the components.
• Complete example: A complete example: the 15 puzzle.
• Final remarks: Where to go from here.