How To Lookup Widgets

Hi Anakrewn Meidis,
Hi all,

  First Anakrewn I hope you don't mind if I answer in
public on the mailing list so others can share their
comments.

>>> The most important thing i'd like to talk about is
>>> the init.bsh script 
>>> found and samples/tree/scripts.
 
>> As far as I can tell let's move all the lookup and
>> registration methods into the Luxor core such as
>> XulMan for example.

> Yes.I have the same opinion.
> The most suitable place probably would be the
XulManager.
> When all components are created then the Interpreter
will be 
> instanciated and so on.
> What is interesting to discuss is how the XulManager
will give 
> references to components to the scripts.

> One possible solution is usage of ids(like is done
now by the init.bsh)
> for example Component lookupComponent(String name)
> Component lookupComponent(Component uncestor, String
name)
> and perhaps other convinient methods as well.

  I've already added some lookup methods to Luxor Beta
9 that we can use for a start.

  The salsa module now includes a static CompUtils
class for widget lookup. For example:

public class CompUtils
{		
	
   public static JComponent get( Container parent,
String id )
   {
	// find component; using breath first search
	
	Component c[] = parent.getComponents();
	if( c == null )
            return null;
		   
	for( int i=0; i < c.length; i++ )
	{
	   String name = c[i].getName();
	   if( name != null && name.equals( id ) )
	      return (JComponent) c[i];
	}
	
	for( int i=0; i < c.length; i++ )
	    if( c[i] instanceof Container )
	    {
	       JComponent found = get( (Container) c[i], id
);
	       if( found != null )
		    return found; 
            }
	    
	 return null;
   }

and so on and so forth.

And I've created new Swing classes such as JFrameEx
and JPanelEx that include the get() method for easy
widget lookup.

Example:

public class JFrameEx extends JFrame
{
	
   public JFrameEx() { super(); }
   public JFrameEx( String title ) { super( title ); }
	
	
   public JComponent get( String id ) 
   {
	JComponent comp = CompUtils.get( this, id );
	if( comp != null )
		return comp;
	
	Status.error( "could not find component reference " +
id + " inside frame" );
	
	return null;
   }	
}

and finally I've changed the Luxor kernel (XulManager,
and so on) to use the new J*Ex classes instead of the
plain old standard Swing classes such as JFrame,
JPanel and so on.

  Let me know what you think.
  
> An other issue is how XulManager (or any other class
responsible for
> this task) will load the scripts.
> The solution I provided is ruther unacceptable.
> It loads (if exists) the scripts/init.bsh which
afterwords
> loads the rest of the scripts. 
  
  Good question. Let's improve the widget lookup first
and then see how to improve the script loading. Any
suggestions are welcome. 

  - Gerald


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