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109 lines
5.6 KiB
109 lines
5.6 KiB
/** \file PropEditor.dox
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\brief The TDevelop Property Editor library description page
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*/
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/** \page PropEditor TDevelop Property Editor library description
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\section whatis What is Property Editor?
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%Property editor is a collection of facilities to store and edit the
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properties of an object. For example, look at %Qt Designer. Each widget
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has a list of properties that can be edited in a nice table form.
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Same ideology is used to edit properties in Kugar Report Designer
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(from KOffice distribution). In TDevelop project manager can also display
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the properties of currently selected build item in property editor.
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\section over Library Overview
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This PropertyEditor library is a redesign of Kugar property editing library
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with the goal to be more generic and extensible.
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Library provides a @ref PropertyLib::Property class which stores property name, value and some
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more important information like description or the list of possible values.
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Using @ref PropertyLib::Property class adds more overhead over TQ_PROPERTY but provides more
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flexibility. You can subclass @ref PropertyLib::Property and create your custom properties.
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Custom properties can have either predefined type (see @ref PropertyLib::PropertyType) or
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custom type. Custom type should be used if a custom property editor widget is
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necessary.
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Properties are organized into lists. @ref PropertyLib::PropertyList is designed
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to store such lists in most efficient manner. It also allows to group
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properties (for example think about "geometrical" properties like "x", "y", etc.).
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Property lists can be displayed in @ref PropertyLib::PropertyEditor widget which will
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display them in a table form. Note that @ref PropertyLib::PropertyEditor takes not
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a @ref PropertyLib::PropertyList object, but @ref PropertyLib::PropertyAccessor instead.
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@ref PropertyLib::PropertyAccessor is designed to provide a method to access an intersection
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of property lists. For example, let's consider object A with property list a_list
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abd object B with list b_list. Now let's imagine we want to display common properties
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from a_list and b_list in one @ref PropertyLib::PropertyEditor widget. Obviously, we need to
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"intersect" a_list with b_list and display the result of intersection.
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This is why @ref PropertyLib::PropertyAccessor is used for editing. If we change
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the value of a property in the editor, @ref PropertyLib::PropertyAccessor will update
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both properties from underlying a_list and b_list.
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@ref PropertyLib::PropertyEditor at the same time shows only one editor for selected
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property in the list. Each @ref PropertyLib::PropertyType has corresponding @ref PropertyLib::PropertyWidget
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which displays property editor or draws a property in the list if it is not edited.
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More exactly, if @ref PropertyLib::PropertyEditor needs to display editor widget, it displays
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@ref PropertyLib::PropertyWidget, else it calls @ref PropertyLib::PropertyWidget::drawViewer function.
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Custom property widgets should be subclasses of @ref PropertyLib::PropertyWidget.
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To create property widgets at runtime, a factory is used. Factory class is
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called @ref PropertyLib::PropertyMachineFactory. Static function @ref PropertyLib::PropertyMachineFactory::getInstance
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can be used to obtain the reference to the factory instance. Factory creates and returns
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so-called @ref Machine for each registered property type (either predefined or user defined).
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@ref Machine contains @ref PropertyLib::PropertyWidget and a list of "detailed" machines.
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Usually only property widget is necessary for a property but there are
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complex properties like "Font" for example. We would like to see separate editors
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for font family, size, etc. and a button to choose all of these in the dialog.
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For that "Font" property, a PropertyWidget with a "choose font" button
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and also number of detailed widgets like "font family" combo, etc. can be created.
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\section Examples
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A simple example on how to create a property editor and use it with one property list:
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\code
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PropertyEditor *m_editor = new PropertyEditor(this);
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PropertyList *list = new PropertyList;
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list->addProperty("My Group", new Property(Integer, "First Property",
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"This is my first property", -5));
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list->addProperty("My Group", new Property(String, "Second Property",
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"This is my second property", "Hello"));
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list->addProperty(new Property(Color, "Third Property",
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"This is my third property", TQColor("green")));
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m_editor->populateProperties(*list);
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\endcode
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More advanced example with property accessors and list intersection:
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\code
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PropertyEditor *m_editor = new PropertyEditor(this);
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PropertyList *list = new PropertyList;
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list->addProperty("My Group", new Property(Integer, "First Property",
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"This is my first property", -5));
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list->addProperty("My Group", new Property(String, "Second Property",
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"This is my second property", "Hello"));
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list->addProperty(new Property(Color, "Third Property",
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"This is my third property", TQColor("green")));
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PropertyList *list2 = new PropertyList;
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list2->addProperty("My Group", new Property(Integer, "First Property",
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"This is my first property", -7));
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list2->addProperty("My Group", new Property(String, "Second Property",
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"This is my second property", "Hello"));
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list2->addProperty(new Property(String, "Third Property",
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"This is my third property", "green"));
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PropertyAccessor *ac = list->intersect(*list2);
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m_editor->populateProperties(ac);
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\endcode
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In this example only properties named "First Property" and "Second Property" will be shown in editor.
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"Third Property" has different types in list and list2 and will not be included in intersection.
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*/
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