1. Print Text to Console

In this lesson, you will learn how to print text to the Console in RoboBlocky. This video walks through Interactive Tutorial #12, where you will use the "print text" block to display text in the Console. You will also learn about using the backslash n (\n) to print text on new lines and how to clear the console for new outputs.

We can display text using a "print text" code block, found in the Text menu:

Note also the "\n" that's automatically included at the end. The \n character is a special character that indicates a new line. Whenever it appears a line break is inserted at that point when the text is displayed. The "\n" is optional.

As another option, the "print with newline" does the same thing as the "print" block with the \n character described above:

2. The Console

The results of print commands are displayed in the "Console", which is a pane that automatically opens up below the Workspace when something is printed. The Console pane may be toggled open and closed using the  Console  button at the top right of the Workspace, next to the  Launch  button.

3. Comments

A comment is a note that we insert in a program to provide information on what the program, or a section of the program, is doing. They are intended to be read by you and others, but they do not affect how the program runs. The computer ignores them.

We use the comment block to create and insert a comment in the code (found in the Text menu):

Click on the text in the block that says "comment" and enter your own text. When the code is run, RoboBlocky will ignore any comment blocks. That is, the text you enter into the comment block only appears in the Workspace, not when the program is run.

Example 1 shows how we can use comments to make it more clear what a section of code is doing.