Cool, thanks for the advice. I was a bit vague in my approach. I did in fact separate model from view in my implementation. What you guys are saying about better modeling the connections seems to be the right approach. On another note, Graham, I looked at your framework and it looks very interesting. Im looking forward to digging deeper when i get a moment. I do need some drawing code for my thesis, so I will be keen to see what kind of license it is under. Thanks again.
On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 6:58 PM, Gordon Apple <g...@ed4u.com> wrote: > (Crud -- Forgot to change the title again. Sorry about that. -- GA) > > > IMHO, you are trying to do this the hard way. I did one similar to > that, using views, many years ago using MacApp. (Presented it at MadaCon in > Phoenix.) I wouldn't do it that way again. Just draw everything in one > view. Define a draw-shape object with lists of inputs and outputs (could > be > objects). Define the connecting lines however you want, as line-objects. > If you want connector objects, define them. You can easily establish a > recursive algorithm that ensures directionality and makes sure you don't > connect more than one output to any input. You an even do (as I did) cut > and paste which preserves inter-object connections. > > If you are not familiar with drawing code, spend some time with the > Sketch example. It has a lot of code you can pilfer. However, I would > suggest putting the code into controllers, not in the view and document > like > Sketch does. > > > Hi Everyone > > > > I've recently tried implementing a tool that functioned similar to Quartz > > Composer (the tool was for an entirely different purpose, and I did not > know > > about Quartz Composer at the time). Basically, the user is presented > with a > > canvas. On the canvas, the user can place squares that represent > components, > > and these components can be linked together by dragging a line from one > to > > another. While, I did get an implementation working, I felt it was quite > a > > bit of hackery, and I'm wondering if anybody else has any experience with > > such a user interface? For me, the hard part was figuring out which view > > hierarchy the connecting lines belonged to. For example my view > hierarchy > > was NSWindow --> Canvas --> Components. A connecting line from one > > component to another didn't seem to fit as a subview of any one > component, > > because its bounds were not within that of any single component - they > were > > between components. My solution was to create a clear CALayer for each > > line, and that layer was owned by the canvas, not any component. > Whenever a > > component was moved on the screen, the appropriate lines needed to be > > updated as well. My solution seemed, to me, to have far to many layers > and > > weak references. > > > > There are many applications like this: OmniGraffle, Keynote (to some > > extent), OpenOffice, Reason, etc. Is this type of interface so common > that > > there are known "tricks" to solving the problem easier (I'm thinking > > something analogous to a design pattern). Thanks a lot. > > > > > > > > -- > > Darren Minifie > > Computer Science Masters Candidate > > University of Victoria, BC. Canada > > My Rants: www.noisyair.com > > My Band: www.ohsnapmusic.com > > > > > > -- Darren Minifie Computer Science Masters Candidate University of Victoria, BC. Canada My Rants: www.noisyair.com My Band: www.ohsnapmusic.com _______________________________________________ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
