I wouldn't mind seeing a generic property editor for some stuff (like
multiobject selection), but the hand crafted property editors are
alot more visually appealing and quite frankly easier to use, there's a
certain "Warm Fuzzy"(tm) feeling to it. However having a generic
property editor for multiple object property changes makes sense, (is the
dia list archived somewhere? It might be instructional to go back and read
the previous discussion about this subject, I think we agreed on
essentially this plan last time).
Brian
On Thu, 29 Jul 1999, Stepan Mik wrote:
> > > based on GtkCTree widget and is common for all objects (if you have
> > > seen Delphi Object Inspector you know what I am talking about). Main
> > > benefit of this aproach is that object producer have not to create
> > > property dialog box for each object he is creating and all property
> > > handling is present in DIA core.
> >
> > On the other hand, for some kinds of objects ("UML - Class" is a good
> > example) it is very nice that you can do the properties dialog exactly as
> > you want. It would be very hard to edit a class object in just a
> > property-value list. Especially since some of the valuse can be quite
> > complex. (Ie method-list).
>
> It's true. But it have a solution. UML Class objest properties are mostly
> lists nested into other list. My property model can be hierarchical (one
> porperty kind is a container which can hold other properties, add and
> delete them). Hierarchical lists are handled quite well using GtkCTree
> widget.
>
> There is another situation when custom dialog is needed - a color or font
> selection. In both cases such property have a textual representation,
> but editing it may be confusing. So there must be a more user friendly
> way how to change them. My idea is: each property holds pointer to
> function which is responsible for alternate editing. This function may
> then display a specialized editing box.
>
> It is important that the specialized editing feature is bound to property
> (set) not to the object, so we still may combine properties from more
> than one object in PropertyEditor.
>
> I think that main advantage of this aproach is that implementation of
> property editing is hidden to object writer in such way as rendering is.
>
> And one another idea - there may be functions that store/retrieve
> properties sets into/from file - another benefit for object writer.
>
>
> Steve
>
>
