widget properties

[Ali Lloyd]

Not much has changed since this question was last asked:
http://lists.runrev.com/pipermail/use-livecode/2015-October/219630.html

The question here really is what you want to use the properties property
for. It is not correct to say that the properties property is used to
create the property inspector - that is in fact done from property
definition files. There are things that are properties that you might not
want to present in a property inspector, and there are things that you
might want to present in the property inspector that are not strictly
properties. Hence we maintain these lists:
https://github.com/livecode/livecode-ide/tree/develop/Toolset/resources/supporting_files/property_definitions

Because the 'classic controls' are somewhat multipurpose, the notion of
control type isn't fine-grained enough to use the properties property for a
good property inspector. In the property definition files, they are split
up into control types (more like how widgets should be, i.e. one widget
kind per distinct functionality)

The VCS-related use case for an expanded properties property still exists
though, as far as I can tell, although 'properties' is kind of a bad name
for it. Actually I think it might be better to add 'export' syntax for
classic controls. The nice thing about the export syntax is that you get
exactly the distinct pieces of information required to reconstruct the
widget (according to the widget author's implementation). It might actually
be a completely distinct representation of the widget state than that
provided by a list of properties and their values (although in practice,
it's usually a subset of the properties).



On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 10:11 PM Richard Gaskin via use-livecode <
use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> hh wrote:
>
>  >> Richard G. wrote:
>  >> I'm suggesting the engine have an enhancement to add
>  >> the widget-specific info to the  universally-supported
>  >> "the properties" info.
>  >
>  > It would be possible to simply add all the info that the property
>  > inspector can display. But that can also easily be scripted by the
>  > user of the widget.
>  > Or use the demo-stacks of the widget's author (I usually provide
>  > these) which contain (parts of) setter and getter scripts.
>
> Exactly.  There are many workarounds available.
>
> What's missing is support for the universal method by which we can
> obtain property info, "the properties" function.
>
> Given that the engine is apparently already able to obtain that info,
> adding it to the universal mechanism for this should seem short work, no?
>
> --
>   Richard Gaskin
>   Fourth World Systems
>   Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
>   ____________________________________________________________________
>   Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com
>
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