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Your First Program

This page makes a document that adds 2 and 5 and prints the answer. It takes five minutes, and on the way you will create a document, place nodes from the keyboard and from a wire, connect them, run the program and read what it printed.

Create the document

  1. On the start screen press New document, or press Ctrl+N anywhere.
  2. A save dialog asks where the new document should live. Every document is a file from the moment it exists, so choose a folder, name it Hello and save. Divooka documents end in .dvk.
  3. The New document card asks for the Entry graph - the kind of graph a run of the document starts: Flows, Function, Events or Routine, with a line under them describing the one chosen. Keep Flows and press Create document.

The New document card, with Flows chosen and its description underneath

The status bar reads Created Hello.dvk, and the canvas is empty. A Flows graph is a free-form canvas where values travel along wires; Graphs and members describes the other kinds.

Two numbers

  1. Point at the left of the canvas and press Ctrl+1. A Number node appears under the pointer. Click the box in it, type 2 and press Enter.
  2. Point a little further down and press Ctrl+1 again; give this one 5.

A node's inputs are on its left and its outputs on its right: each Number has one output, the dot on its right edge.

Add them

Several nodes are called Add - for dates, times, vectors and lists as well as numbers. Typed into the tray, Add offers the Add of two numbers first; starting from the Number's wire also places it already wired:

  1. Drag from the first Number's output dot and let go on an empty spot to its right. The toolbox tray opens with a chip reading Filter for Number: it offers only the nodes that can take a number.
  2. Type Add. The first offer is the Add under Number Routines, and the right half of the tray says what it does: Adds two numbers and returns the sum.
  3. Press Enter. The Add is placed with the first Number already wired into its first input, Summand1.
  4. Drag from the second Number's output dot to Add's second input, Summand2.

The toolbox tray opened from a Number's wire, searching for Add: the Add under Number Routines is highlighted and described on the right

  1. Point to the right of Add, press Ctrl+Space, type Print Line and press Enter.
  2. Drag from Add's output dot to Print Line's input, Message.

Dropping Add's wire on an empty spot and choosing Print Line there does both at once: the tray offers Print Line from a number's wire, and wires it in.

A wire only lands where its value can go. Wiring into an input hides that input's own value box: the wire's value wins.

Run it

A Flows graph runs the nodes marked Active, and everything they need. Nothing is active yet, so:

  1. Click Print Line to select it, and press Space. It is marked active, and the line above the canvas reads 4 nodes · 3 wires · 1 active · 4 will run.
  2. Press Run on the toolbar, or F5.

The status bar says how many nodes ran and how long they took - 4 nodes in a few milliseconds - and every node that ran shows done under it. The Properties panel turns to its Run face, which reads Finished. Print Line printed a line, so the status bar's console count reads 1 line with a dot beside it. Click it, or press Ctrl+`, to open the console: it reads 7.

The finished program after its run: two Numbers wired into Add, Add into Print Line, the Run face reading Finished, and the console open under the canvas with the line 7

Change the first Number to 40 and press F5 again: the console reads 45.

Save it

Press Ctrl+S, or Save on the toolbar. The status bar reads Saved Hello.dvk. Next time, the document is on the start screen under Recent.

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