Mars User Interface

There are five important areas in the Mars user interface. They are named in the diagram below.

The Menu Bar

The menu bar has menu items for performing various actions. The most useful menus for assembly language programming are the "File", "Edit", "Run", and "Help" menus. The most commonly used menu items are available on the toolbar.

The Toolbar

The tool bar contains buttons for the most commonly used menu items. They are grouped into four groups corresponding to the "File", "Edit", "Run", and "Help" menus.

The Edit/Execute Pane

The edit/execute pane is a tabbed pane.

• Clicking on the "Edit" tab displays the MIPS assembly language editor.
• Clicking on the "Execute" tab displays assembly and run time information.

The Registers Pane

The registers pane is a tabbed pane. Unless you are writing systems or floating point programs you usually just leave the "Registers" tab selected. This displays the integer registers of the simulated MIPS processor.

The Mars Messages/Run I/O Pane

The Mars Messages/Run I/O pane is a tabbed pane.

• Clicking on the "Mars Messages" tab displays assembler and some run time messages.
• Clicking on the "Run I/O" tab displays program I/O and some run time messages.