On 29/04/2006, at 1:43 AM, Steve Weintraut wrote:
I'm writing a product configuration system. I have a list rules to
code, as if part A is added, then parts B and C need to be added as
well. etc, etc.
...
Sure, RBScript seems like an easy answer, but that's too techy for
the intended audience.
I wrote something similar for writing code for picture effects,
combining calls mainly to the Einhugur PictureEffects library, for a
printing app.
It doesn't include any conditional logic but something I did which I
suggest you consider is generate RBScript & expose it.
There's a GUI which allows people to pick effects and configure their
parameters with sliders and colour pickers (a data-driven UI).
The GUI adds rows to the script.
The user can flip to an Expert pane and edit the text there. They can
also copy, paste, email favourite combined effects around etc.
This requires:
- the GUI entry components can generate RBScript lines
- each entry component can also parse a line
For your conditionals, rather than thinking in terms of classic if-
then logic, maybe you can structure it as a series of conditional
tests, more as a pattern-matching thing, that maps across into a
Select Case statement.
Alternatively, for every category of stuff, have some generator
function in the RBScript - the idea being to have some extremely
regular code as a framework and then just specific bits, maybe
bracketed by some comments, that people can edit as the "experts".
Big tip - remember you don't have to expose the entire RBScript for
people to edit, you can always have a considerable preamble and
append the edited bit before running!
I'm sure we will all be very interested to see how it works out!
regards
Andy
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