Is this a good idea ? a little OOPification of GuiControls

#1 Okay, the reason i was doing this
is because i'm adding a new console method to SimSet: addWithField().

%controlA.addWithField(%controlB, <fieldName>);

is equivelant to doing this:

%controlA.add(%controlB);
%controlA.<fieldName> = %controlB;

i know that some folks recommend against building GUIs dynamically,
but i/we tend to do quite a lot of it.
i long ago got over my surprise that they are so un-object-oriented.
for example, if i add a child control to a parent in the usual fashion,
the parent does not have a member variable which is the child,
and if the child is something you'll want to manipulate later (in realtime),
it's generally given a name in the global namespace.

so i'm thinking about experimenting with making it a little more OOP-like.

here's an example usage from the command line:

==>canvas.getContent().addWithField(new GuiButtonCtrl() { text="la la la"; }, "mPanicButton" );
==>canvas.getContent().dumpFields();
7974-GuiChunkedBitmapCtrl-LoginGui
Member Fields:
  <snip>
Tagged Fields:
  mPanicButton = "8887" <----------------- ta da

my question now is: from a GuiControl architecture point of view, does this seem like a good idea ?

#2 Here's the new consolemethod if anyone's interested.
i'll submit it as a resource after kicking it around a bit.

// oxe 20080919
// takes a list of <object, fieldName> pairs,
// and for each pair, adds <object> to the SimSet as normal,
// but also sets a field in the simSet named <fieldName> who's value is <object>.
// so eg
// %myGuiControl.addWithField(%someOtherGuiControl, "mTitleBar")
// results in %someOtherGuiControl being a child guiControl like normal,
// but also %myGuiControl.mTitleBar will equal %someOtherGuiControl.
//
// if the number of parameters is odd, the last object in the set will still be added, but not given a field.
ConsoleMethod(SimSet, addWithField, void, 3, 0, "set.add(obj1, name1, obj2, name2,...)")
{
   for(S32 i = 2; i < argc; i += 2)
   {
      SimObject *obj = Sim::findObject(argv[i]);
      if(obj)
      {
         object->addObject(obj);
         if (i + 1 < argc)
         {
            // here we are..
            object->setDataField(StringTable->insert(argv[i + 1]), NULL, argv[i]);
         }
      }
      else
      {
         Con::printf("Set::add: Object \"%s\" doesn't exist. %s", argv[i], getConsoleTrace());
      }
   }
}

#3 GuiControl also derives from SimGroup, so its pretty easy to loop through its children controls the same way you would with a SimGroup. If you want to find a particular one you would want to give your control an internalName and do something like this..

// Looks in the Set and all sub-sets
%ctrl = ParentControl-->ChildsInternalName;

// Does not look in sub-sets
%ctrl = ParentControl->ChildsInternalName;

The -> operator is a fairly new thing to TorqueScript, its actually the same as calling findByInternalName("string"), which is a method of SimSet.

#4 Hm, that's an interesting alternative.
the syntax is certainly cleaner.

we're based on TGE 1.3,
but even without the "->" operator, using findByInternalName() may be cleaner.

does that check all descendants, or just immediate children ?

thanks for the ideas!

#5 Looks like just immediate children.
thanks for pointing this out, James!

i knew about findObjectByInternalName(), i just hadn't thought of using it in this situation.

#6 As I said, --> checks all children, -> checks just immediate children. FindObjectByInternalName takes an optional bool for specifying this.