widget properties

[Richard Gaskin]

Brian Milby wrote:

 >> > Brian M. wrote:
 >> > One other thing that could be done is to extend the export to
 >> > include everything that the engine knows about the widget (i.e.
 >> > add the properties array to it).
 >>
 >> The widget author can already do that by defining a list of
 >> persistent properties. Why should the engine override that?
 >
 > I see this as a unification rather than override.

Exactly.  My request is almost exactly as you worded it, but in reverse: 
  rather than adding the info obtainable from the universally-supported 
"the properties" to something widget-specific, I'm suggesting the engine 
have an enhancement to add the widget-specific info to the 
universally-supported "the properties" info.

This suggestion would seem to address hh's concern as well:
 > The documentation and property-infos are a *lot* of work and will
 > raise the price of a widget (if not free), just as with standalones
 > or externals.

By having an engine-level enhancement to include the values already 
supplied by the widget per the widget spec included in the existing "the 
properties" function, we would then have one universal array to work 
with which would adequately describe any object with no additional work 
needed from any widget developer.

Consider the LC IDE's Inspector:  to populate its controls it obtains 
"the properties" from all LC-native objects, and "the properties" + 
widget-specific info from widgets.

If the engine included the widget-specific info in "the properties", the 
Inspector need only query one place to obtain all relevant info about an 
object.

And given that "the properties" was introduced to provide a universal 
way of obtaining object info, and that widgets were introduced as a way 
to provide native-like objects without requiring engine-level 
implementation, honoring the purpose of "the properties" by extending it 
to include widget-specific info would seem every bit as useful as having 
"the properties" has been until the introduction of widgets.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
  ____________________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com