[mcclim-devel] Conditional Commands (And Sheets) Extension

[Max-Gerd Retzlaff]

Hello,

I have written an extensions for McCLIM. See below for the
documentation file starting with a short description of its
purpose. The source code contains an complete example, the complete
code is currently available at:
   http://bl0rg.net/~mgr/flux/conditional-commands_v2_20051122.tar.bz2
   (or http://bl0rg.net/~mgr/flux/conditional-commands_v2_20051122/ )
But I'm going to commit it to the McCLIM CVS repository soon; I think
the directory mcclim/Extensions/conditional-commands will be suitable.

Comments are welcome.

 -- zipp --

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Title: Conditional Commands (And Sheets) Extension
  Created: 2005/11/22
   Author: Max-Gerd Retzlaff <m.retzlaff at gmx.net>, http://bl0rg.net/~mgr
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
  (c) copyright 2005 by Max-Gerd Retzlaff


This extensions tries to add simple and elegant methods to specify
dependencies among commands and between commands and sheets of a
(Mc)CLIM application.

Imagine an audio player: The play commands should only be enabled if a
audio file is loaded; the same is true for the push-buttons that
trigger these commands and probably for a slider that might represent
the current position in the audio file.

It may also be nice if only the possible commands and gadgets (in
general: sheets) will be enabled if you restart the GUI of such a
programme (restart only the GUI not the whole programme).



The extensions uses the term conditional command for commands that
enable or disable commands and/or sheets, and the term conditional
application frame for an application frame in whose context
conditional commands are invoked.

It is stored which commands and sheets got disabled during a run of a
conditional application frame; when you exit the application frame and
run the top level of a newly created instance of the application frame
the previous state will be re-established. This implies that only one
instance of a conditional application frame can be running at given
time!



You can define conditional command by using the macro
DEFINE-CONDITIONAL-COMMAND, that is very similar to the CLIM macro
DEFINE-COMMAND: The only change is that ENTITIY-ENABLEDNESS-CHANGE is
inserted as the new second parameter

ENTITY-ENABLEDNESS-CHANGE has to be a list that matches the parameter
list:

   (application-frame &key enable-commands
                           disable-commands
                           enable-sheets
                           disable-sheets
                           evaluate-this)

For example:

(define-conditional-command (com-bar :name t :menu t
                                     :command-table cruft-command-table)
    (conditional-commands-example :enable-commands  (com-baz)
                                  :disable-commands (com-bar)
                                  :enable-sheets    (thud)
                                  :disable-sheets   (grunt))
    ()
    (format t "~%bar called"))

Note that the elements of the arguments to :ENABLE-COMMANDS and
:DISABLE-COMMANDS can not only be names of commands but also names of
command-tables; in the latter case all comamnds of the command table
will be enabled (or disabled).

With EVALUATE-THIS you can specify a form that will be evaluated when
the "entity enabledness change" happens, for conditional commands this
is immediately after the body of the command has been executed.



Initially all conditional commands and all sheets that might be
disabled by them are enabled. To specify which commands and sheets
should initially be disabled when the top level of the application
frame is run (CLIM:RUN-FRAME-TOP-LEVEL) there is another macro:
DEFINE-CONDITIONAL-APPLICATION-FRAME. It is very similar to
CLIM:DEFINE-APPLICATION-FRAME, only ENTITY-ENABLEDNESS-CHANGE is
inserted as the new third parameter.

In this case ENTITY-ENABLEDNESS-CHANGE has to be a list that matches
the parameter list:

   (&key enable-commands
         disable-commands
         enable-sheets
         disable-sheets
         evaluate-this)

For example:

(define-conditional-application-frame conditional-commands-example ()
  (:disable-commands (com-bar com-baz)
   :disable-sheets (thud grunt)
   :evaluate-this (incf *incarnation-number*))
  ()
  (:command-table ...)
  (:panes ...)
  ...)

This "entity enabledness change" happens in a :BEFORE method of
CLIM:RUN-FRAME-TOP-LEVEL that dispatches on the just defined
conditional application frame.



It might be less confusing to define all "entity enabledness changes"
in one place, therefore it is also possible to define an "entit                     :enable-commands  '(com-bar)
                               :disable-commands '(com-baz)
                               :enable-sheets   '(grunt)
                               :disable-sheets   '(thud))

The argument to ADD-ENTITY-ENABLEDNESS-CHANGE has to be a list that
matches the parameter list:

   (command application-frame &key enable-commands
                                   disable-commands
                                   enable-sheets
                                   disable-sheets
                                   evaluate-this)

To define the "entity enabledness change" of a conditional application
frame seperately the first argument to ADD-ENTITY-ENABLEDNESS-CHANGE
has to be the string concatenation of the name of the conditional
application frame and the string "-start".

In these cases the second argument for DEFINE-CONDITIONAL-COMMAND and
DEFINE-CONDITIONAL-APPLICATION-FRAME might be the empty list.
(Note: You still have to use DEFINE-CONDITIONAL-COMMAND and
DEFINE-CONDITIONAL-APPLICATION-FRAME and not CLIM:DEFINE-COMMAND and
DEFINE-APPLICATION-FRAME.)



(Be sure to have a look at the contents of the file
conditional-commands-example.lisp for the full code of the example.)

  -- zapp --

-- 
Max-Gerd Retzlaff <m.retzlaff at gmx.net>

For your amusement:
life, n.:
        Learning about people the hard way -- by being one.
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