The encoding property

Richard Gaskin ambassador at fourthworld.com
Tue Aug 27 10:19:47 EDT 2013


Peter Haworth wrote:
> This is for the next release of my lcStackBrowser plugin.  It will include
> the ability to display and edit properties within the main lcStackBrowser
> window.  As part of that functionality, users can define property groups to
> include whatever properties they wish.  In turn, that is achieved by
> drag/drop from a list of properties for an object type to a list of
> properties within each of their property groups they specify.
>
> Hope that explains the final goal :-)

It does - thanks.

> At the moment, I am using a similar technique to yours where I start of by
> getting the keys of the properties than add in a hard coded list of missing
> properties for the object.  That's OK but suffers from the downside that
> every time a new release of LC comes out with new properties that perhaps
> is not included in "the properties" (and there have been quite a few
> recently), my list is out of date and I would have to put out a new release
> simply to include the new properties.
>
> The issue of synonyms is part of but separate from all that.  I have now
> figured out how to get a list of the synonyms for any given property from
> Bjornke's db (what an invaluable plugin!), at least to the extent that the
> information in the dictionary is accurate.

I wonder if perhaps you could split the difference, and have your 
property-checking routine done during development to build a list that's 
used at runtime.  That would keep runtime lean and efficient, and unless 
you plan on abandoning the utility (which wouldn't make sense of course 
after putting so much time into it) you'll probably be releasing new 
versions anyway, so keeping it updated with the engine probably won't 
need much greater frequency of updates than normal enhancements and bug 
fixes would require anyway.

Either way, as you noted "the properties" isn't providing what you need 
and requires some manual trimming anyway.  It's just designed for a 
different purpose, so until we get a function specifically for the needs 
of IDE builders (I'd love to see "the complete properties of <obj>") 
some manual work will always be required.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
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