Boston Python workshop/Saturday/ColorWall

Project

Program graphical effects for a ColorWall using the Tkinter GUI toolkit.

Goals

Have fun experiment with and creating graphical effects.
Practice using functions and classes.
Get experience with graphics programming using the Tkinter GUI toolkit.

Project setup

Download and un-archive the ColorWall project skeleton code

http://web.mit.edu/jesstess/www/BostonPythonWorkshop6/ColorWall.zip

Un-archiving will produce a ColorWall folder containing several Python files, including: run.py, effects.py, and advanced_effects.py.

Test your setup

From a command prompt, navigate to the ColorWall directory and run

python run.py -a

You should see a window pop up and start cycling through colorful effects. If you don't, let a staff member know so you can debug this together.

Project steps

1. Learn about HSV values

Run the ColorWall effects again with

python run.py -a

The names of the effects are printed to the terminal as they are run. Pay particular attention to the first 4 effects:

SolidColorTest
HueTest
SaturationTest
ValueTest

What are the differences between these tests? Given these difference and how they are expressed visually, how does varying hue, saturation, or value change a color?

2. Examine `Effect` and the interface its subclasses provide

All of the effects inherit from the Effect class. Examine this class and its __init__ and run methods.

Suggested exercises

Find and change the colors used in the Checkerboards effect, and re-run the effect:
```
python run.py Checkerboards
```
Then change the line
```
    if (x + y + i) % 2 == 0:
```
to
```
    if (x + y + i) % 3 == 0:
```
re-run the effect, and see what changed.
Find and change the color of the columns in the Matrix effect, and re-run the effect:
```
python run.py Matrix
```
Each column that we see on the wall corresponds to a Column object. Add some randomness to the color used by each column (the variable whose value you changed above) using the random.random function, re-run the effect, and see what happens.
Walk through Twinkle. Find explanations of the random.randint and random.uniform functions in the online documentation at http://docs.python.org/library/random.html. Experiment with these functions at a Python prompt:
```
import random
random.randint(0, 1)
random.randint(0, 5)
random.uniform(-1, 1)
```
Then experiment with the numbers that make up the hue and re-run the effect:
```
python run.py Twinkle
```
Write your own effects!

Some Useful Links

If you choose to use HSV colors you define instead of the dictionary, you may find some of the following useful:

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