Ah!
When I first sent email, I was racking my brain for an example
of an actor that used a custom editor but did not come up with one.
However, now I realize that the TM domain SchedulePlotter, the
DocumentationAttribute and the GiottoCodeGenerator icon all use a
custom editor by having a public createEditor() method.
Interesting about changing the Parameter choices and having
it reflected in the configuration. I believe you are correct
in that Query does not really support that. Using a custom
editor is a good solution.
_Christopher
--------
Christopher,
There's actually two ways to hook into the configuration dialog to
provide customization. If you put a ptolemy.actor.gui.EditorFactory in
your actor, the createEditor() method will be envoked when the user
attempts to configure the actor. The standard dialog is not displayed
at all -- the createEditor() method is completely responsible for
constructing the dialog.
If you put one or more ptolemy.actor.gui.EditorPaneFactory instances in
your actor, then Configurer will envoke createEditorPane() on each of
them and pack them into its pane. The standard dialog button across the
bottom are displayed, and the inner workings of ptolemy manage the
"cancel" operation.
Since I didn't want to mess with the whole dialg thing I opted for the
EditorPaneFactory route.
My Actor has a couple of phases to its configuration. First you need to
specify url/user/pass information and query the server for
capabilities. These capabilities then drive choices and optional
parameters.
The problem with using just your ordinary configuration dialog (as
generated by ptolemy.actor.gui.Configurer) is, by only using the
attribute change listener of the actor you are not able to change the
choices of a parameter and have them reflected in the configuration
dialog. What I'm saying is, the Parameter objects don't have a
"choiceChangeListener" function which could be hooked to the underlying
JComboBox to update the ui. Of course I could cheat and dig into the
JPanel and try to find the correct combobox object and force it to
update, but that would probably be pretty fragile.
So, I built a custom pane which proves me better control. I have a
custom button which executes the remote query, and since I handles to
the various Swing components I can more easily update them.
But that brought me to the last problem. I use
ptolemy.actor.gui.PtolemyQuery objects internally to build the label/box
objects in order to have the same L&F as the rest of the ptolemy
configuration dialogs. But when you add a Parameter to the
PtolemyQuery, the PtolemyQuery is added as a value listener to the
Parameter. This means that the PtolemyQuery will never be garbage
collected unless you explicitly remove the object from the Parameter's
value change listeners.
Ahh, and after all this typing I see where I can hook. I need to
implement CloseListener in my panel. Then I get notified that the
dialog has been closed and I can properly remove all my listeners.
Thanks for the help
Kevin
Christopher Brooks wrote:
>Hi Kevin,
>I don't think Vergil supports creating custom configuration panes.
>It probably should, but it does not.
>
>If I understand you correctly, then it looks like you are creating an
>actor and then when you click on the actor, you would be able to edit
>some parameters in the parent container.
>
>The way I would do this is to have the actor have parameters that
>are set to composite actor (aka toplevel) parameters in the container.
>
>Usually, one would then right click on the background of the
>composite actor to edit the parameters.
>
>You could try using ptolemy.moml.SharedParameter:
>
>"This parameter is shared throughout a model. Changing the expression
>of any one instance of the parameter will result in all instances that
>are shared being changed to the same expression. An instance elsewhere
>in the model (within the same top level) is shared if it has the same
>name and its container is of the class specified in the constructor
>(or of the container class, if no class is specified in the constructor)."
>
>
>Some of the early Ptolemy models don't use vergil and instead have
>their own UI. See the CSP Dining Philosophers example and
>the CSP Bus Contention example. You could do something similar, but
>that would mean you would not be using Vergil.
>
>_Christopher
>
>Christopher Brooks (cxh at eecs berkeley edu) University of California
>Programmer/Analyst Chess/Ptolemy/Trust US Mail: 558 Cory Hall #1770
>ph: 510.643.9841 fax:510.642.2739 Berkeley, CA 94720-1770
>home: (F-Tu) 707.665.0131 (W-F) 510.655.5480 (office: 400A Cory)
>
>
>
>--------
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> I'm a Ptolemy rookie so please point me to FAQ or other documentation
if
> available.
>
> I have written a TypedAtomicActor which has a few StringParameters to
> control its behavour. Also, I've written an EditorPaneFactory for thi
s
> actor which presents some custom configuration panes. The factory
> returns an object which derives from JPanel and uses code roughly like
this
> :
>
> public HelloWorldEditorPane( NamedObj container ) {
> super();
> parent = (HelloWorld) container;
>
> PtolemyQuery hostQuery = new PtolemyQuery( container );
> hostQuery.setTextWidth( 40 );
> hostQuery.addStyledEntry( parent.url );
> hostQuery.addStyledEntry( parent.user );
> hostQuery.addStyledEntry( parent.pass );
>
> this.add( hostQuery );
>
> }
>
> This code using the PtolemyQuery has been cribbed from the
> ptolemy.actor.gui.EditorPaneFactory.createEditorPane() method.
>
> The problem that I see, is the addStyledEntry() method (through the
> PtolemyQuery.attachParameter() method ) ends up adding this to the
> ValueListener list of the StringParameters such as parent.url. Since
> this list is implemented as a standard LinkedList, the StringParameter
> hold on tightly to the PtolemyQuery object and that object is never
> freed. In order to remove this from the value listeners, I'd have to
call
>
> parent.url.removeValueListener( hostQuery )
>
> when the hostQuery object is no longer needed (such as when the
> configure window is closed). But I don't think the Panel that I creat
ed
> ever receives notification that the configure dialog has been closed.
>
> Is there some way to work around this issue? Is there some actor in
> there which does this properly.
>
> Thanks for the advice.
>
> Kevin Ruland
> University of Kansas.
>
>
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