Preview
Video Player
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Clean Up
4:50Our app has great functionality but some of the UI could be nicer. Let's refine the interfaces a bit and make it nicer to use.
I don't think that we have a huge number
of tweaks to make to our UI, but
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we definitely have some.
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We need more space around entries, when we
are reading them, and really,
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I'd rather not just keep scrolling the
screen, let's see what we can do.
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Let's start by giving ourselves a little
bit of room after we print out an entry.
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Having the menu right up against the
content makes the content a little
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hard to read.
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So, let's go back to view entry again,
view entries.
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This has been a very popular function for
us to modify.
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So right here after we print out the
content, let's print out two new lines.
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And let's also again print out the equal
signs for the length of the time stamp.
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So two of the lines, and
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then as many equal signs as there are
characters in the time stamps.
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Really, though, I think most of the
unreadableness comes from the fact that
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everything is just printed onto the string
one thing after another,
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just files down, like we've always been
doing.
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We can do better than that, though.
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Let's add in the ability to clear the
screen before we print something out.
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To do this, we're gonna need to call some
OS level stuff,
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so let's bring in the OS library.
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So we come back up here, and we import os.
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And I wanna make a little function that is
called clear.
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And what I want this function to do is to
clear the screen.
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And I'm gonna need this more than once,
that's why I'm making it a function.
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If I was only gonna ever do this one time,
I just write it straight into the code.
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So, what we're gonna do here is os.system,
which let's us call a,
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function on the system, or sorry not a
function a, like a program.
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And we're gonna call CLS if the OS's name
is NT,
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which is Windows I guess if you're on
really old like 98 or
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95 it won't be empty but I do believe
everything else is empty.
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Else, call the function clear or the, the
program clear.
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So we call cls if we're on Windows.
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We call clear if we're on Linux, Mac,
whatever.
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So let's use this where we can.
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I think that whenever they do something on
the menu-
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[BLANK_AUDIO]
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That we should, or whenever we show the
menu rather, we should clear the screen.
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So while choice isn't Q let's call clear.
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And then, I think before we call whatever
the thing is on the menu that we're gonna
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do, like add any entry, or view entries, I
think we should clear the screen again.
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So, we add clear here, and we add clear
here.
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Okay, I think those are pretty good.
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And then I think, the last place,
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maybe that we would put in clear would be
right before we print out an entry.
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It seems like that's one of our more
cluttery areas.
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So we go back to view entries yet
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again, and before we start doing our
prints here, let's call clear.
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All right so it's gonna clear out our, our
screen.
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Kay.
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So let's test all of this out.
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[SOUND] And look, there's our menu.
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Cool.
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So I'm gonna add an entry.
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That starts a brand new thing.
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Hello, this is a new entry.
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Ctrl+D.
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Save it, sure.
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Going back to the menu, clears out the
screen again.
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Let's view.
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There's my new entry, and
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it's nicely format, I, I've got more room,
everything's more nicely formatted.
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If I got to the next entry, there's just
that entry.
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If I wanna delete that one, come to there,
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I'm gonna say, no, I don't wanna delete
it.
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So we just moved on to the next one.
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I think we'll lose our print where we
said, entry deleted, but
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that's not that big of a deal.
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So, yeah.
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That's our app.
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That's a lot better.
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I did notice one thing, which if you're
typing along with me,
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you're gonna get too.
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[BLANK_AUDIO]
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Should be enter your entry, not just enter
you entry.
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All right.
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That's our app, that's a whole lot better.
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Wow, that's so much better.
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About the only things I could see adding
to this, would be some color coding, and
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maybe a bit of tech strapping.
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I'll leave all of that up to you.
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But I'll add a couple of handy libraries
to the teacher's notes.
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Well, that's it.
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We're done with another Python course,
here at Treehouse.
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Based on this new ability, you should be
able to go and
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improve older projects, or start brand new
ones.
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Record wins and losses on the games that
we've built together.
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Or, if you did the regular Expressions
course,
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stick the address book entries into a
database table.
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Be sure to let me know if you build
something.
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I'll see you next time.
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