A few observations and questions regarding iModifiable entries

Andrei Bârsan <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.comp.graphics.crystalspace.devel
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Hello, CS developers!

I have worked some more on the csEditor framework, and I have a few 
things about its inner workings that are still not 100% clear to me.

The wiki page states that iModifiableParameter only has GetName, 
GetDescription, GetType and GetConstraint. What about the actual value? 
The practical example shows that, indeed, csGenmeshMeshObject, a child 
of iModifiableParameter, implements Set/GetParameterValue functions. I 
would assume that the interface does, in fact, need those methods.

Logically, this would make sense. That's the heart of the parameter - 
its value - setting and reading it, that is.

Also, if one parameter has its own id and value, why do those methods 
need to take an additional csStringID parameter, in addition to the 
actual value the parameter needs to receive?

I understand that we might need to implement our own 
Get/SetParameterValue functions for slightly more advanced cases (like 
the csGenmeshMeshObject example on the wiki), but shouldn't there still 
be some basic built-in functionality for very simple cases? i.e. not 
having to actually create a class implementing iModifiableParameter when 
we just want to edit a plain string, or an integer. And of course, 
simple situations like this will arise quite often. Should then a set of 
basic iModifiableParameters be implemented, like an iModifiableString, 
iModifiableInteger and so on for these lightweight use cases?

Another question would be why does iModifiableDescription need to be 
able to get parameters? (it has GetParameter(...) and 
GetParameterByIndex(...) methods) Shouldn't the just iModifiable object 
have a list of parameters? And have the description not know anything 
about them? Why would iModifiableDescription need to know about the 
parameters of the object it's describing?

Regards,
Andrei Bârsan

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