In computer programming, event-driven programming is a programming paradigm in which the flow of the program is determined by external events. UI events from mice, keyboards, touchpads and touchscreens, and external sensor inputs are common cases. Events may also be programmatically generated, such as from messages from other programs, notifications from other threads, or other network events.
Event-driven programming is the dominant paradigm used in graphical user interfaces applications and network servers.
In an event-driven application, there is generally an event loop that listens for events and then triggers a callback function when one of those events is detected.
Event-driven programs can be written in any programming language, although the task is easier in languages that provide high-level abstractions.
Although they do not exactly fit the event-driven model, interrupt handling and exception handling have many similarities.
It's important to differentiate between event-driven and message-driven (aka queue driven) paradigms: Event-driven services (e.g. AWS SNS) are decoupled from their consumers. Whereas queue / message driven services (e.g. AWS SQS) are coupled with their consumers. [1]
Because the event loop of retrieving/dispatching of events are common amongst applications, many programming frameworks take care of their implementation and expect the user to provide only the code for the event handlers.
RPG, an early programming language from IBM, whose 1960s design concept was similar to event-driven programming discussed above, provided a built-in main I/O loop (known as the "program cycle") where the calculations responded in accordance to 'indicators' (flags) that were set earlier in the cycle.
The actual logic is contained in event-handler routines. These routines handle the events to which the main program will respond. For example, a single left-button mouse-click on a command button in a GUI program may trigger a routine that will open another window, save data to a database or exit the application. Many IDEs provide the programmer with GUI event templates, allowing the programmer to focus on writing the event code.
While keeping track of history is normally trivial in a sequential program. Because event handlers execute in response to external events, correctly structuring the handlers to work when called in any order can require special attention and planning in an event-driven program.
In addition to writing the event handlers, event handlers also need to be bound to events so that the correct function is called when the event takes place. For UI events, many IDEs combine the two steps: double-click on a button, and the editor creates an (empty) event handler associated with the user clicking the button and opens a text window so you can edit the event handler.
Most existing GUI architectures use event-driven programming. [2] Windows has an event loop. The Java AWT framework processes all UI changes on a single thread, called the Event dispatching thread. Similarly, all UI updates in the Java framework JavaFX occur on the JavaFX Application Thread. [3]
Most network servers and frameworks such as Node.js are also event-driven. [4]
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HyperTalk is a discontinued high-level, procedural programming language created in 1987 by Dan Winkler and used in conjunction with Apple Computer's HyperCard hypermedia program by Bill Atkinson. Because the main target audience of HyperTalk was beginning programmers, HyperTalk programmers were usually called "authors" and the process of writing programs was known as "scripting". HyperTalk scripts resembled written English and used a logical structure similar to that of the Pascal programming language.
Swing is a GUI widget toolkit for Java. It is part of Oracle's Java Foundation Classes (JFC) – an API for providing a graphical user interface (GUI) for Java programs.
The Visual Component Library (VCL) is a visual component-based object-oriented framework for developing the user interface of Microsoft Windows applications. It is written in Object Pascal.
Windows Forms (WinForms) is a free and open-source graphical (GUI) class library included as a part of Microsoft .NET, .NET Framework or Mono, providing a platform to write client applications for desktop, laptop, and tablet PCs. While it is seen as a replacement for the earlier and more complex C++ based Microsoft Foundation Class Library, it does not offer a comparable paradigm and only acts as a platform for the user interface tier in a multi-tier solution.
wxPython is a wrapper for the cross-platform GUI API wxWidgets for the Python programming language. It is one of the alternatives to Tkinter. It is implemented as a Python extension module.
The event dispatching thread (EDT) is a background thread used in Java to process events from the Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT) graphical user interface event queue. It is an example of the generic concept of event-driven programming, that is popular in many other contexts than Java, for example, web browsers, or web servers.
A user interface markup language is a markup language that renders and describes graphical user interfaces and controls. Many of these markup languages are dialects of XML and are dependent upon a pre-existing scripting language engine, usually a JavaScript engine, for rendering of controls and extra scriptability.
In software engineering, inversion of control (IoC) is a design principle in which custom-written portions of a computer program receive the flow of control from a generic framework. The term "inversion" is historical: a software architecture with this design "inverts" control as compared to procedural programming. In procedural programming, a program's custom code calls reusable libraries to take care of generic tasks, but with inversion of control, it is the framework that calls the custom code. In essence, this means delegating the execution of tasks to generic code over specific code allowing for more versatility.
Twisted is an event-driven network programming framework written in Python and licensed under the MIT License.
The message loop is an obligatory section of code in every program that uses a graphical user interface under Microsoft Windows. Windows programs that have a GUI are event-driven. Windows maintains an individual message queue for each thread that has created a window. Usually only the first thread creates windows. Windows places messages into that queue whenever mouse activity occurs on that thread's window, whenever keyboard activity occurs while that window has focus, and at other times. A process can also add messages to its own queue. To accept user input, and for other reasons, each thread with a window must continuously retrieve messages from its queue, and act on them. A programmer makes the process do that by writing a loop that calls GetMessage, and then calls DispatchMessage, and repeats indefinitely. This is the message loop. There usually is a message loop in the main program, which runs on the main thread, and additional message loop in each created modal dialog. Messages for every window of the process pass through its message queue, and are handled by its message loop. A message loop is one kind of event loop.
In computer science, the event loop is a programming construct or design pattern that waits for and dispatches events or messages in a program. The event loop works by making a request to some internal or external "event provider", then calls the relevant event handler.
QF-Test from Quality First Software is a cross-platform software tool for automated testing of programs via the graphical user interface. The program is specialized on cross-browser test automation of static and dynamic web-based applications. Version 4.1 added support for MacOS and the Apple Safari and Microsoft Edge browsers via the Selenium WebDriver. RESTful web service testing. From version 5.0, Windows applications can also be tested and modern C++ applications. Version 5.3 added support for the Chrome DevTools protocol, which allows browsers to be controlled using CDP drivers.
In programming and software design, an event is an action or occurrence recognized by software, often originating asynchronously from the external environment, that may be handled by the software. Computer events can be generated or triggered by the system, by the user, or in other ways. Typically, events are handled synchronously with the program flow. That is, the software may have one or more dedicated places where events are handled, frequently an event loop.
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UI data binding is a software design pattern to simplify development of GUI applications. UI data binding binds UI elements to an application domain model. Most frameworks employ the Observer pattern as the underlying binding mechanism. To work efficiently, UI data binding has to address input validation and data type mapping.
ZK is an open-source Ajax Web application framework, written in Java, that enables creation of graphical user interfaces for Web applications with little required programming knowledge.
Vaadin is an open-source web application development platform for Java. Vaadin includes a set of Web Components, a Java web framework, and a set of tools that enable developers to implement modern web graphical user interfaces (GUI) using the Java programming language only, TypeScript only, or a combination of both.
Node.js is a cross-platform, open-source JavaScript runtime environment that can run on Windows, Linux, Unix, macOS, and more. Node.js runs on the V8 JavaScript engine, and executes JavaScript code outside a web browser.
QML is a user interface markup language. It is a declarative language for designing user interface–centric applications. Inline JavaScript code handles imperative aspects. It is associated with Qt Quick, the UI creation kit originally developed by Nokia within the Qt framework. Qt Quick is used for mobile applications where touch input, fluid animations and user experience are crucial. QML is also used with Qt3D to describe a 3D scene and a "frame graph" rendering methodology. A QML document describes a hierarchical object tree. QML modules shipped with Qt include primitive graphical building blocks, modeling components, behavioral components, and more complex controls. These elements can be combined to build components ranging in complexity from simple buttons and sliders, to complete internet-enabled programs.
The JavaFX scene graph, which represents the graphical user interface of a JavaFX application, is not thread-safe and can only be accessed and modified from the UI thread also known as the JavaFX Application thread.