QSRK!

QSRK! (Quick Script Runner for Kotlin!) is a simple GUI Desktop application developed using Compose Multiplatform that lets users write, run, stop, and read in real-time the output of a Kotlin script.

Features

• Write Kotlin script in the edit panel supporting basic syntax highlighting for common language constructs.
• Execute the script or forcefully terminate it through the play and stop buttons.
• View the real-time output produced by a running script in the build-in output panel.
• In case Kotlin's errors or Java exceptions are generated during execution, they are printed by the output panel and highlighed, permitting user to see them. Additionally it's possible to click them to focus the editor cursor on the associated line.

Supported Operating Systems

At the time of writing the application has been tested on a MacBook Pro M2 with macOS Sequoia 15.4 (ARM64).

Building and Execution

It's possible to compile and execute the application either within the IDE IntelliJ IDEA or manually using gradlew.

Building and execution with IntelliJ IDEA

Clone the following repository and then open it with IntelliJ IDEA. To build the project either press Cmd + F9 on macOS, or click on Build -> Build Project. After the compilation, QSRK! can be executed by selecting MainKt in the configuration panel on the top-left of the IDE and then by pressing the play button to its right.

Building and executing manually with gradlew

It is possible to compile the process manually within a terminal using gradlew. Clone the following repository and open the terminal inside the generated folder, then execute:

./gradlew build // Building QSRK!
./gradlew run   // Running the application

Project Structure

The project is organized in the Main.kt file, which initializes the GUI, and the following packages:

• scriptHandler : ScriptHandler and scriptStatus implement the logic for starting the script and synchronising the script's status icon. The executing of the script is done by creating a process with Java's ProcessBuilder API. The Standard Output and Standard Error have been merged into a single stream for handling the error parsing. Characters from this stream are read greedily, one at a time, to minimize delays and provide real-time feedback to the user. To guarantee that the GUI remains reactive during the process's execution, coroutines have been used.
• parsing : for handling the parsing of characters the class Segment has been created. A Segment contains data regarding a range of contiguous characters in a text and how they should be stylised during their rendering.
  • syntaxParsing : Implements syntax highlighting via SyntaxTransformation. Since the user can dynamically modify the text, the highlighter re-parses the entire text body after each interaction..
  • errorParsing: : The parsing of errors and exception has been delegated to errorParser and SyntaxTransformation.
    • errorParser defines methods to detect errors within lines and construct segments from them.
    • SyntaxTransformation handles the rendering in the output panel. Since the printed output of a process only appends text to it, instead of parsing the whole text each time, a list containing already parsed segments is used to speed up the process significantly.
• guiComponents : contains he classes and functions that are used for constructing the graphical part of the application.
  • MyColor conveniently stores the colors used throught the GUI portion.
  • buttons : provides functions for construction the play and stop buttons.
  • fields : defines the TextLabels composing the GUI. Notably the edit panel is actually generated as the combination of editField and lineField. The two generates two separated labels, one for writing the script and one for the numbering of the lines. The two are synchronized in a way such that when the user press either \n or backspace, editField gets triggered and checks if some lines have been removed or added.

Fun Facts

• I have chosen QSRK! as the name of the application because it seemed to me the world an alien would say. For this reason the play and stop buttons are a little weird.
• The play button is actually called Plaju, while the stop button is called Stoompd.
• Originally I had also designed Monitrix, which was the status icon and mascotte of the program. Sadly for time costraints I wasn't able to add it, but you can see the concept I have developed for it in the file status_icon_concepts.png.