Glossary for Alice Programming: introduction

Learn Alice in FREE step-by-step lessons.

biped: A biped is a 3D character that stands on 2 feet. This includes all of the humans, but also a few animals such as the pig and a cat that stand on 2 legs.
brieftour: Video Overview of the components in Alice
   A Brief Tour of Alice
class: Classes in Alice are definitions of the various 3D models. When you drag one of these classes onto the stage you create an object, which is an instance of the class. A class can be described as the blueprint or template for creating an instance of the class.
crash: Alice tends to crash, but there are steps to avoid frustration.
   Crashing
crash: Crashing is when a program stops working.
flyer: Flyer is the class of objects that have wings. This includes penguins that don't actually fly in the real world.
function: A function returns an answer to a question.
gallerytour: Video overview of the 3D models available
   A Gallery Tour
IDE: Most modern programming environments allow you to create the program, edit it and run it from one application called the IDE Interactive (or Integrated) Development Environment. Older programming languages required you to work with several separate applications.
inheritance: In programming, inheritance means that you can create a base class, such as a quadruped, and then derive another class, such as an elephant, that inherits all of the properties of other quadrupeds, but it is extended to have additional properties, such as a trunk. In this example, Quadruped is the base class and Elephant is the derived class.
installation: ALice must be downloaded and installed on your computer.
installation: Install Alice in Windows or Mac
   Installing Alice 3
instance: The gallery has a number of classes of 3D models. When you select one of the 3D models and drag it into the scene, you are creating an instance of that class. Only the instances that you add to the virtual world can be used in your code. You can have more than one instance of a class. For example, you might want 3 elephants. You could change some properties of them so that they don't all look the same.
method: Methods are procedures which perform an action, and functions which answer a question.
objects: Shows some of the main categories
   Objects
object: An object is an instance of a class. You create an object when you drag it onto the stage. An object is any of the 3D models that make up the virtual world. It includes animals, trees, the ground, camera, props, and characters.
procedure: A procedure performs an action.
project: The final project, animating a fairy tale, or other known story, teaches you to design, test, and debug a larger project.
   Create a Final Project
prop: Prop is the category that includes classes for trees, walls, and other types of scenery
quadruped: A quadruped is the class that stands on 4 legs. The quadruped class includes bear, dog, horse, elephant, dragon, etc. However, in the Alice world a pig (and a few others) is a biped and stands on 2 legs.
slitherer: The Slitherer Class includes a hermit snail, a long neck snail and nagi.
substitutes: You won't find everything you want.
   Substitutions for things you can't find
swimmer: The Swimmer class has two subclasses: Fish and MarineAnimals classes. There are 7 different fish, and 5 marine animals, including a dolphin and a walrus.
template: You must select a template such as Grass or Mars with just sky and ground, or one of the templates shuch as Africa which include scenery.
transport: The Transport class has 4 subclasses: Aircraft (6 models, including HotAirBalloon, Biplane, Helicoper and UFO), Automobiles (14 models), Trains (3 models) And Watercraft (5 models). All of these models have subparts that can be manipulated.
world: In Alice, you create a world, or virtual world, by adding 3D models, arranging them, selecting fog and other settings for the story you want to tell.
Full Glossary