Programming in C++
 Bernd Mohr 

Installation

An installation of the presentation is not necessary. You can play it directly from DVD or from the  world wide web (if the bandwidth is sufficient). Information on the necessary software can be found at Software Requirements. For the installation of external products follow the installation instructions of the software.

Start

The presentation starts by opening index.html with a browser, which provides a short introduction to the presentation. The audio-visual lecture itself is started by opening index.smi or index_linux.smi for the limited version with the RealPlayer. These files can be accessed from the start page. All three files are in the root directory of the DVD.

The slimmed-down version (index_linux.smi) with limited functionality, which is especially recommended for the Linux operating system and also with a slow network connection or less powerful computer system, does not include the following options:

• highlighting the current section in the navigation area
• page-wise navigation within the slides
• jumping from the lecture to the corresponding exercises
• displaying a link to the corresponding source code in the lecture
• option of jumping from the index to the lecture

The presentation was optimized for a monitor resolution of 1024 by 768 pixels and therefore a 100 percent presentation size occupies almost the entire screen. If the Windows taskbar does not disappear automatically you will not have enough screen space for optimal viewing. The presentation can be enlarged without difficulty, especially in the case of larger screen resolution, but this results in a poorer display and is therefore not recommended. The best quality is achieved if you select "1x" from in the upper left corner of the player window to scale the window up to 100 percent.

When you first start the RealPlayer you should unlink the player and the browser by activating the button between these windows.

For smooth fonts under Windows you can activate "Smooth Screen Fonts" for the display properties.

Study Methods

The lecture is very detailed, but it does assume good knowledge of the programming language C and a certain amount of programming experience.

The course was held as a real lecture in 15 sessions. With recapitulations, every lecture took 1 ½ hours. An exercise was done after each lecture. This structure can be found in the title area under "Day Schedule" and can be used for navigation or as a starting point for your own individual learning rhythm.

Only the exercises show whether the lecture has been understood and they also reveal any comprehension problems. They thus permit you to check your own progress.

As in the real lecture, exercises are included in the presentation at appropriate points as can be seen from the button that becomes visible in the top region of the slides. The exercise should be done at the respective point in the presentation so that any gaps in comprehension are revealed in good time. By jumping back in the lecture it is easy to repeat parts of the lesson to fill in any gaps.

At two points, several exercises are presented at once: namely exercises 4 to 8 and 11 to 13. Although from the level of knowledge attained, these exercises could all be done at the point where they occur, they should be worked through by degrees so that the following section of the lecture does not become too long since it does not contain any other exercises. There are 14 exercises for 18 hours of lectures, which roughly shows the intervals at which the exercises occur.

In addition to the previously described approach for learning C++ from scratch, such a presentation of a lecture that has already been prepared could naturally also be used as a refresher course or for learning new aspects as required. This is particularly the case since the different concepts offered by C++ can be applied independently of each other.

With respect to the sources of information recommended in the course, attention is drawn here once again to the sources on the internet collected by Dr.-Ing. Bernd Mohr:  http://www.fz-juelich.de/zam/cxx.

Structure

The following screenshot shows the audio-visual lecture.

In general, all orange texts or elements in the presentation are clickable.
At certain points in the presentation where you can jump to the content outside the RealPlayer (for example, when you jump to the exercises and sources from the slides), the lecture stops so that you can read the new information at your own speed. The lecture can then be started again by clicking on the Play button of the RealPlayer at the same place.

Corresponding to the figure shown above, the presentation can be divided into 6 sections:

1. video or photo of the lecturer
2. title and general navigation
3. navigation within the lecture, the sources, the dictionary or index
4. slides of the presentation
5. RealPlayer controls
6. RealPlayer internal browser

Video or photo

This area contains the video of the lecturer with slide interaction or just a photo of the lecturer if the network bandwidth is between 50 and 500 Kbps or the presentation is outside the actual lecture. The video is particularly important for assigning the spoken lecture to the correct location on the corresponding slide.

Title and general navigation

The upper part of the presentation accommodates the title and the general navigation, which can be used to reach all the contents of the presentation.

The first navigation bar with Lecture, Source Index, Dictionary and Index refers to the contents that can be played with the RealPlayer.
Lecture is the lecture itself and the division according to the days of the actual lecture can be found in the last line under Day Schedule.
Source Index shows an index which can be used to jump to all locations within the lectures where source examples are presented.
Dictionary refers to a small English-German dictionary of C++ terms.
Index opens an index from which, by clicking on the respective page number, you can jump directly to the appropriate place in the lecture where the concept is introduced or discussed.

The second navigation bar opens external contents.
Lecture Notes (*) refers to the lecture notes in PDF format. The Acrobat Reader needed to read these notes can be found on the DVD or on the  world wide web.
Sources (*) opens a list with all the sources from the lecture, from which, by clicking on the file name, you can open all the files in a structured manner shown by the different colours. Clicking on the asterisk (*) after the file name will open the file without any coloured highlighting so that it can be more easily saved for further use.
Imprint (*) refers to a page introducing the lecturer, the producers and the sales office.
Help opens this on-line help.
Personal Data (*) jumps to a page with more details on the lecturer, Dr.-Ing. Bernd Mohr.
Exercises (*) refers to a list with all the exercises, which can be opened not only by this button but also directly from the lecture. For more information on the exercises see here.

Navigation

This area accommodates the navigation within the actual lecture, the sources, the dictionary and the index.

The lecture is structured in two levels. The left-hand column shows the rough structure and by clicking on the individual points a more detailed breakdown can be opened in the right-hand column. The part of the lecture that is active is highlighted in light yellow. The place where you are is shown by black text.

The Source Index enables you to jump to the location in the lecture at which the source in question is discussed by clicking on the page number. An alphabetical and chronological list of all sources can be reached via the Sources link in the title region of the presentation.

Slides

This area shows the slides of the presentation synchronized with the talk. Furthermore the dictionary and the index are displayed here.

During the lecture, other navigation elements appear in the head area, some of which can be made visible as required.

The buttons in the upper left-hand corner enable you to jump chronologically between the slides in the lecture. You therefore do not have to scroll through the lecture notes page by page, although it is also possible that the forward arrow may jump backwards in the slides.
The buttons are usually visible; they enable you to jump to the previous slide in the lecture (), to the next slide (), or to repeat the present slide ().
If you skip slides by jumping backwards or forwards then the or button will appear. The status bar of the RealPlayer shows the page number which you have jumped to. As already mentioned above, you can jump chronologically in the lecture. Further visual support indicating jumps in the opposite direction is provided by the respective buttons being highlighted (, , or ).

If required, the button that refers to an exercise to be done at this point appears in the middle of the head area. The button usually appears on the last page of the chapter to which the exercise relates. Further information on the exercises can be found here.

When you click on the button , which can also appear twice, it opens the sources with coloured highlighting of the examples being dealt with.

Apart from the slides, in this area the dictionary and the index are also displayed if they have been selected in the title area. You can also jump from the index to the respective place in the lecture by clicking on a page number. If you cannot jump to the lecture this is shown in the status bar of the RealPlayer and means that a few of the topics are not dealt with in the lecture. For information on topics not dealt with in the lecture refer to the lecture notes included in the presentation.

RealPlayer controls

The overall presentation is designed to take 20 hours, with the last 1 ½ hours containing the source index, the dictionary and the index. You can jump freely within these 20 hours by using the slide control. It is also possible to pause, to stop and to wind. The volume can also be adjusted here. For detailed information please refer to the help pages of the RealPlayer itself.

Browser

The internal browser in the RealPlayer behaves like any other browser and also has similar properties. It serves to display most of the HTML pages.

When you first start the RealPlayer you should unlink the player and its browser by activating the button between these windows.

Exercises

It is strongly recommended that the 14 exercises included in the presentation should be done as described in the Study Methods section to ensure that you successfully learn C++ by studying on your own.

You can reach the exercises either via the Exercises link in the title area or they are made accessible at the appropriate point in the lecture via the button in the slide area.

Each exercise consists of a description, solution, discussion and, if necessary, additional notes.

The description contains the problems set and links to the files required.

The solution contains the sources of the solution. As is usual in the entire presentation, the file names refer to the colour structured source code and the link under (*) to the pure source code. In order to save the sources for later use, in the coloured and in the pure text version of the source the browser content can be copied by cut and paste, or else the file to which (*) refers can be saved in the browser.

In the discussion of the solution, the sample solution is developed in a video and Dr.-Ing. Bernd Mohr gives a commentary on his solution. The video in flash format is started by clicking on "Discussion of solution". The same discussion is also available in a format for the RealPlayer which is already used for the lecture. Use the link (*) behind "Discussion of solution" to access this function. When the exercise is played for the first time in Real format, the necessary codec is automatically installed under windows if the network connection is present. Since Flash format is available on 98 percent of internet-compatible computers this format is preferable for most users. If the Flash Player has to be installed, it can be found on the DVD or on the  world wide web.

If you have difficulty in solving the exercises, before simply going to the standard solution you should first consult the additional hints, which often have useful tips so that you can perhaps solve the problem on your own after all. You can find this supplementary information by clicking on additional hints, although this help is not available for all the exercises.