How to save Pane or GUI on javafx - user-interface

I read a lot of solutions for how to save an object,
but how can I save a complex node in JavaFX like a pane with other panes or nodes inside? Also, I would like to save the state the text of TextField.
Is there any API that I can save the object as it is?
Or I must write my own save methods?

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Modifying VB6 control properties from text editor leads to unexpected behavior

So I'm writing a script to modify quickly a VB6 application's interface with COM controls. (Created in C# .net). Most of it works fine, but some panels are giving me a lot of trouble.
Basically, I open the .frm file and read it, and when I find some controls I modify their values or insert new things. When I find a panel, I create a different panel around it so it looks better. I'll put, say Top = 2340 in the file for my new element. If I open the .frm in notepad, I can clearly see that the value of Top is at 2340. Once I open VB6, the panel's top value is at Top = 8190. It also modifies the Left value, but nothing else. If I save and exit vb6, then reopen the .frm in notepad, the Top value will be saved at 8190.
Why does VB6 uses different values than the ones in the .frm file? Is it trying to avoid elements stacking on top of each other ? What is happening between reading the file and opening it, that forces a different value of the Top property?
Just a theory, but I believe the issue is that the ScaleMode property isn't setup right. By default, unless the container window has the property, it'll be set to Twips. So what may be valid under certain containers won't be valid in other containers.
The MDIForm container, for example, forces Twips, and may even re-position objects based on alignment.
If this is the form itself, which I don't think it is but worth mentioning, make sure the StartUpPosition is properly set to 0 (Manual).

Applescript and Microsoft Word

I'm working on a applescript to update the content of a document in Microsoft Word. The updating process is quite long (might take more than 5s). So I want to prevent users to change anything during the updating. Do you know whether Microsoft or Applescript a function like that?
In Windows, I can just display a User Form (which is a dialog telling that "we are updating... ") and close that form when it's done. However, I don't know whether I can do the same in Mac (with Applescript alone).
When you say "applescript", I don't know if you mean "plain" applescript or the AppleScriptObjC version. If you mean the latter, then I know ways to do it.
One way I've used during slow processes is to put an overlay view over the whole content view of the window. I make it translucent white to partially obscure the window, and put some kind of message (and maybe a progress indicator) on it. You can just use an NSBox (of the custom type) in IB to make this, and then make a subclass of NSBox to color the view and override mouseDown:. MouseDown:, doesn't need to have any code in it, just by overriding it, you capture any key and mouse events so they don't accumulate on the event queue, and get used by the view below after your overlay goes away. Here's code I've used:
script Overlay
property parent : class "NSBox"
on awakeFromNib()
set overlayColor to current application's NSColor's colorWithCalibratedWhite_alpha_(1,.8)
setFillColor_(overlayColor)
end
on mouseDown_(theEvent)
--log "mouseDown"
end
end script
I have this view as the top most view in the view hierarchy, and set its hidden property to true until I want to show it.

Copying control components

I have a C++/CLI project which has a child form with some control components. I would like to copy all the control components with their codes on a new Tab control on the main form. How can I do that?
You can select all of the controls in the designer (hold down the Shift key to make multiple selections), and then cut and paste them to their new location: Ctrl+X, Ctrl+V
Alternatively, you can open up the *.Designer file that is generated automatically by the Windows Forms designer and copy the relevant lines of code out of that file into your other code file. Look for the code that creates and sets properties on the controls you're interested in. For every property of the control that you have set to its non-default value in the designer, there will be a line for it in this file.
If, instead of moving (cutting) the controls from one place to another, you want to copy the controls so that they appear in multiple places, I strongly suggest creating a UserControl that contains all of the child controls and encapsulates the relevant code. Then, you can just drop an instance of this custom UserControl out of your toolbox into whatever form you want, or even dynamically create instances at runtime. This is consistent with the general programming/design principle that you should seek to keep code duplication to a minimum while encapsulating as much as possible.

Is it possible to design Dialogs within a Dialog, both created with ressource editor?

Is it possible to create a dialog ressource with a resource editor and then put this dialog (possibly multiple times) into another dialog?
Here's some background. I need to create a C++ program (Windows). The user needs to input a set of similar data on a dialog. Say, for simplicity's sake, an element of this data-set consist of an edit control and a scrollbar. Since this combination (edit + scrollbar) needs to be put onto the dialog for each element for the data-set, I thought I could create a simple dialog with just one edit control and one scrollbar, and then put this dialog mutliple times onto its "parent" dialog.
So, is this possible at all. Any pointers will be greatly appreciated.
Yes, you can do this.
In the dialog editor, set the "Control Parent" flag on the parent dialog. (This will ensure the tab key works to cycle through items in the child dialogs as if they were part of the parent dialog.)
Make sure the child dialog(s) have the "Child" flag set in the dialog editor. Visually, they'll look like dialogs without any border at all in the editor.
At runtime, create the child dialogs as children of the parent dialog using CreateDialog (or CreateDialogParam, etc.). When calling CreateDialog you specify the dialogproc for each window.
I often make the child dialog procs do little more than forward messages to the main window's dialog proc (calling it directly; not via SendMessage), but you have to be careful, obviously. You have to be especially careful if you are creating multiple copies of the same dialog in a single parent, since obviously the control IDs within that dialog will all be the same and you need to differentiate them (perhaps by the parent's hWnd).
You don't have to forward messages to the parent, though. I just do usually do that so that most of the dialog's logic is in one place instead of spread out.
EDIT: Corrected statements about creating the child dialogs, window classes etc. I was mixing up dialogs and normal windows, making things more complex than they are in this case. Sorry about that!

What's a good way to bind from a shared utility window and the frontmost document window?

I have an application which allows for multiple NSDocuments to be open. In this application is a single utility window that contains some functionality that I want to apply to the frontmost document.
I am trying to use bindings here, so the trick is how to cleanly bind the user interface of the utility window to the frontmost document. The goal is that then switching the frontmost document window will update the view in the utility window; controls that are bound to properties of the frontmost document's model would be updated appropriately when state changes in the document's model, etc.
For sending actions from such a window, it's easy to just use first responder; the document object can intercept actions via the responder chain. But I want more than this, and of course you can't bind to the first responder.
A few ideas that I have:
put an object controller in my nib for the shared window. When a document window changes frontmost status, change the content of that binding. A disadvantage of this is that if I were to have another kind of utility window, I'd have to remember to hook up the bindings from the document window to that utility window too!
Make an accessor in the application delegate that gets the frontmost document window by traversing the window list. My utility window would just bind through the application delegate's method. A disadvantage here is that it's not KVO compliant
Have a getter and setter in the application delegate to determine (and perhaps set to be KVO-compliant? would that make sense?) the frontmost document. Perhaps use window notifications set an ivar to the appropriate value when a window loses main status. Update: I'm using this for now, and it actually seems pretty clean. I set the value from the windowDidBecomeMain notification of my doc window and clear it (if it's the current value) in windowWillClose. Unless there is any major objection, this is probably the approach I'll use.
One idea was to bind to mainWindow.windowController.document ... this comes close, except that when my shared window becomes main, then this binding goes away. So really I need to find the frontmost document window's controller (and of the right class).
None of these seem quite right. Is there a better way to do this that I'm missing?
I’ve always bound through Shared Application, mainWindow.document, which works fine. if you have windows w/o documents, you may want to add a mainYourKindOfWindow key that is implemented by watching mainWindow and updating the value based on some filter criteria.
Leopard's TextEdit does this for its inspector. Check it out in file:///Developer/Examples/AppKit/TextEdit.
put an object controller in my nib for the shared window. When a document window changes frontmost status, change the content of that binding.
That makes the most sense to me. You'd change the content to the document instance ([NSDocumentController currentDocument]).
A disadvantage of this is that if I were to have another kind of utility window, I'd have to remember to hook up the bindings from the document window to that utility window too!
Huh? I don't understand this.
Leopard's TextEdit does this for its inspector. Check it out in >file:///Developer/Examples/AppKit/TextEdit.
In TextEdit, inspector values are bound via an intermediate object controller. The controller content object is bound to the shared application mainWindow.
You may bind the content to mainWindow.firstResponder and uncheck "Raises for not applicable keys".
Use the key window, not the main window. KVO might not be supported for NSApplication's keyWindow property, but you can still use NSNotifications if it doesn't work. The reason for this is that NSDocumentController's currentDocument uses the keyWindow, so it better represents the built in functionality. Also, panels can be set to avoid becoming key window.

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