Event handler and functions are the same thing? - events

As per my understanding, unlike functions, event handler receives the event object as parameter.
Is there any other difference between those two words or both are similar?
Can anyone elaborate both the terms?

It really depends on the specific language and API you are using. In C for instance, event-handlers are usually implemented as functions. in C++ they can also be callable objects. Other languages may offer different options.

It may depend on the language. Event handler is a function which often has a special parameter (in most cases) where the parameter is the event object.
So no, there's really no difference between an event handler and a function. You could easily call an event handler just as you would call a function, except you would have to pass some event object to the event handler function, which is not always the case.
Basically you would never call an event handler as you would call a function, you would have something invoke the event when something is triggered, that may be the only difference.
I hope this post is helpful.

Well, event handlers are specific to the framework you use. Java's GUI model is based on even handlers, typically you pass an anonymous inner class that implements the expected interface (like KeyListener) to the addKeyListener (or similar) method.
In C, you typically use function pointers to the same effect. A button struct would hold a function pointer to a callback, and this function could be passed an event struct.
C++ allows you to use the function-pointer idea, or you can define an object that runs some method when you try to 'call' it - some_obj() on a suitably-defined object would call some function of your choice. You could even make it take arguments. Python is like this as well.
If a callback takes a parameter that specifies the event, it's typically called an event handler. But they can be used pretty much interchangeably.

Related

What is PreserveThreadContext() when calling async functions in Kephas?

I noticed in all Kephas examples that, when invoking async methods, at the end there is a call to PreserveThreadContext(). What does this do?
Some example:
var result = await dataContext.Query<Document>()
.ToListAsync()
.PreserveThreadContext();
I know about ConfigureAwait(false), is this something similar?
In a way, yes, meaning that in a server environment it includes also a call to ConfigureAwait(false). But it also restores the thread bound culture (and UI culture) upon returning from the async call, so that the strings can be localized in a consistent way. This is due to the fact that you may find yourself in another thread upon returning, where the culture is the default one, not the configured one.
Also, you can add your own behaviors for storing/restoring other thread bound information.
Check for this purpose the class https://github.com/kephas-software/kephas/blob/master/src/Kephas.Core/Application/PreserveCultureThreadContextAppLifecycleBehavior.cs, which adds the culture preservation behavior. Typically, you would implement this in an AppLifecycleBehavior, in the BeforeAppInitializeAsync method.

Delegation in Pharo Smalltalk

What is the best way of doing delegation in Smalltalk, more specifically in Pharo? I know of the doesNotUnderstand strategy, but it does not delegates subclassResponsability messages.
I was thinking on something that delegates every message send not explicitly implemented on the class to some specified object, like I can do, for example, with #Delegate in Groovy. Is there some already known way of doing this?
doesNotUndersand: will only work on methods that the object does not understand (thus the name), so if you already have implemented a method it will not be used (as is the case with subclassResponsibility.
If you use Pharo 5 (which should be released this week (May 2016)), you could use MetaLinks. It's a bit of an overkill, however what you are doing doesn't seem right to begin with (why would you want to delegate subclassResponsibility)?
In either case, MetaLinks allow to attach runtime behavior to your methods, for example:
You have some method that you want to delegate
MyObject>>someMethod
^ self subclassResponsiblity
And an object to which you wish to delegate to…
MyObject>>delegate
^ delegate
So you create a MetaLink
link := MetaLink new
metaObject: [ :object :selector :arguments |
object delegate perform: selector withArguments: argument ];
selector: #perform:withArguments:;
arguments: #(object selector arguments);
control: #instead.
Which you can install to any method AST you want.
(MyObject>>someMethod ast) link: link.
Now every time the method will be called, instead (that's what the control: does) of executing the method, the arguments of the message (if any) will be given to the block in metaObject:.
Although this should work and is extremely powerful mechanism, right now there are serious disadvantages that currently being addressed:
no documentation
little tooling support (it's pretty hard to debug)
a lot of work (we are working on a framework that would ease this as you would want to easily install them and uninstall them everywhere you need, but it's not ready yet, so it has to be done by hand)
recompilation removes the link (see point above)
Summary
To summarize, this is possible to do with MetaLinks as I've shown, however at the moment it's quite a lot of work, but we are addressing those issues.
what Peter was talking about is, you can override the
subclassResponsibility, just like you did for the doesNotUnderstand method.
There is no need to override every senders of "self subclassResponsibility".
For example, just delegate to the implementation of doesNotUnderstand
subclassResponsibility
^ self
doesNotUnderstand: (Message selector: thisContext sender selector
arguments: thisContext sender arguments)

cocos2d-x write the callbacks using c++11 lambda

sometimes the usage of a callback is very limited, which makes it in-appropriate to be a member function. so at these times I always want to write the event call backs as lambda functions as the usage is limited the codeblock is compact if wrote in lambda
but this callback is generally defined member functions and there are interface limitations inforced on it
I wonder if it is possbile to rewrite the callback in lambda functions ?
pMenuOK->setTarget(this,menu_selector(PlayerLayer::onPlayed));
void PlayerLayer::onPlayed(cocos2d::CCObject *pSender);
For simple CCCallFunc callbacks that take no parameters, you may want to check out
MCBCallLambda.
I don't think it's possible. The way they are called by Cocos2d-x is by using a target pointer to a CCObject in combination with a method pointer. Thus, the target has to be a CCObject. As you said, these are defined for different types of parameters. Cocos2d-x need to be changed to support this.
It is possible for any method that accepts CCCallFunc [1] or its subclasses. Create own subclass of CCCallFunc which keeps std::function and overrides execute method and maybe some other methods (figure out which implementation needed from CCCallFunc sources).
[1] http://www.cocos2d-x.org/embedded/cocos2d-x/dd/d6e/classcocos2d_1_1_c_c_call_func.html

Registering Window Class

I guess my question is relatively easy for those of you who spent time dealing with Win32 API.
So my question is:
After initializing a WNDCLASSEX instance we need to "register" it using the "RegisterClassEx" function, why? Why do we do that? What's the meaning of this registration and in what cases I need to register things?
The ATOM returned by RegisterClassEx uniquely identifies your "window class" which can then be referred to in other windows APIs. [MSDN]
Effectively it is a hash so as to reduce the amount of data processed each time a window is created or looked for. It does also mean that multiple windows with same features can be easily created and identified.
I was addressing the practical reasons above. Hans Passant's answer correctly explains this is the OO class concept provided for C. Further MSDN example.
The word Class in the function name is significant. When you write code in an object oriented language, like C++, Delphi, Java or C# etcetera, then you use the class keyword to create objects that have behavior. But the winapi was designed to be used from C, a language that doesn't have such functionality. The RegisterClassEx() function is an emulation of that, it lets you create a window that "derives" its behavior from a named class, behavior that you can override. With every window that you create using that class name behaving identically.
The WNDCLASSEX structure you pass gives a window its default behavior. The most significant members of this structure are:
lpszClassName. That's the equivalent of the C++ class name. You can later call CreateWindowEx() and pass that name to get a window that behaves a certain way. Windows itself calls RegisterClassEx() to register several of its built-in window classes that you then can readily re-use in your own code. "EDIT", "BUTTON" and "LISTBOX" are good examples of that.
lpfnWndProc. This is what gives a window class its specific default behavior. The address of its window procedure that implement message handlers for specific messages. You can further customize the default behavior, in other words "derive" your own class from the base class, by specifying another window procedure in the CreateWindowEx() call. Such a window procedure must always call DefWindowProc(), the equivalent of calling the base class method. Or in other words, a window has one virtual method.
hIcon, etcetera. These are the equivalent of properties of the base class, they set default values that affect the default message handlers. Helping you to keep your window procedure simple. It is for example rarely necessary to write a message handler for WM_ERASEBKGND, the hbrBackground member sets the default background for a window.
Windows requires you to call RegisterClassEx() even if you don't plan on re-using a window. Which is by far the most common usage of the function in your own code. You don't start to really take advantage of it until you write a library that implements controls, windows that other code can use. Like "EDIT".

How can I react meaningfully to a changeAttributes: delegation pass-through from WebView?

WebView supports, through the WebEditingDelegate, a mechanism for the delegate to implement custom behavior for a variety of actions the WebView (or the private WebHTMLView) receives. When an action such as:
-(void)changeAttributes:(id)sender
is received in WebHTMLView, it is passed through to the delegate method:
-(BOOL)webView:(WebView *)webView doCommandBySelector:(SEL)command
Unfortunately, the mechanism does not provide for conveyance of the "sender" in the original action method.
For the vast majority of actions, the sender is unimportant, but for changeAttributes, and changeFont, for example, the contract requires that "sender" be called by the recipient in order to e.g. convertAttributes: or convertFont:.
For the changeFont case, it turns out that calling [[NSFontManager sharedFontManager] convertFont:] is sufficient, as coincidentally this is what the sender is.
In the changeAttributes case, in particular when strikethrough is changed, the sender may be a private class "NSFontEffectsBox" which presumably corresponds to the subsection of the font panel that is responsible for changing strikethrough/etc settings.
Unfortunately, calling [[NSFontManager sharedFontManager] convertAttributes:] does NOT obtain the expected attribute changes. This leaves a delegate who is interested in implementing this method meaningfully in a bit of a conundrum:
WebKit does not convey the sender, so the delegate can't make the contractual [sender convertAttributes:] call.
The changeAttributes: call is sent to a private WebKit class, WebHTMLView, which cannot be subclassed to, e.g., customize the behavior of changeAttributes:.
The sender for the changeAttributes: call, NSFontEffectsBox, is a private class and cannot be accessed e.g. as [NSFontEffectsBox sharedFontEffectsBox].
In short: there appears to be no way for a developer to meaningfully override the behavior of changeAttributes: for a WebView.
Any ideas?
This is an evil one. A suitably evil pair of actions (neither of them particularly clean or ideal) would be:
Do some inline assembler to look back up the stack to read the sender argument from the caller's stack (or the caller's caller, as the case should be). This of course assumes that the sender is placed on the stack and not in %eax when the call to WebHTMLView was made. That will always apply to PowerPC code however, so it's likely a non-starter there.
Put a category on WebHTMLView with a method named something like __my_evil_hacky_nasty_ugly_changeAttributes_thing: and at runtime use method_exchangeImplementations() from the ObjC runtime to swap your category's implementation with theirs. Your method becomes changeAttributes: and theirs becomes __my_evil_hacky_nasty_ugly_changeAttributes_thing:, which you can then call to pass on the original call.
As I said, neither is particularly ideal, but the second has the advantage of full runtime support (i.e. the runtime is explicitly designed to let you do this), and since you're looking up the class and methods at runtime, it's failure-tolerant. Failure in this case gets you back to square one however.
Really it needs a bug logged against WebKit to have them pass on the sender to make it meaningful at all. Your overridden version could potentially look for a method -(BOOL)webView:(WebView*)webView doCommandBySelector:(SEL)selector sender:(id)sender and call that if found, otherwise just call through to the original method. This is what Apple's code should be doing, TBH.
Have you looked at the source code?
WebHTMLView.mm
I don't see how -changeAttributes: is calling -webView:doCommandBySelector:, as within this class it's only called inside its own -doCommandBySelector: method.
- (void)changeAttributes:(id)sender
{
[self _applyStyleToSelection:[self _styleForAttributeChange:sender] withUndoAction:EditActionChangeAttributes];
}
- (void)doCommandBySelector:(SEL)aSelector
{
…
if (![[webView _editingDelegateForwarder] webView:webView doCommandBySelector:aSelector] && coreFrame) {
…
}
Also, why can't you subclass WebHTMLView? Is it because of the Mac App Store restrictions on API? Does WebKit count as private? I thought it was Open Source.
-Wil

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