RE: [Pythoncard-users] Live property editor

> From: Neil Hodgson
>
>    Something I like to see in user interfaces is live updating where
> attributes are changed as the user fiddles with them rather than requiring
> pressing an "Apply" button. To this end, the property editor can
> be changed
> to apply changes to the text areas and check boxes immediately by adding
> this just after the EVT_BUTTON section of debug.py:

I'll try playing with this tomorrow. In theory I like this idea, but the
poorly written code we have today (my bad) is too fragile. I would much
rather see the Property Editor rewritten with a better interface and a more
robust system before making it handle live updates. Are there particular
fields you really want live updates on more than others? The one thing I
really dislike about live updates is that it is too easy to mess something
up accidentally, which implies that we need Undo/Redo.

>    A problem with this is that some settings such as the file names used
> within image controls will cause error messages with partially
> updated file
> names. Mostly, these should be changed to just silently handle failure or

Doesn't this happen for almost all of the text fields?  A partial position,
size, foregroundColor, backgroundColor, file, or font are problematic,
right? So, are you saying that we eliminate being able to hand edit the text
field contents?

> perhaps have a status area indicator that the field is invalid. For file
> names, the file open dialog should ensure that only valid file names are
> applied and this has the advantage of being able to select files
> rather than
> just type their names.

Yes, not having a file selection dialog was an oversight. I also realized
yesterdy that I shouldn't be using eval() on the contents, since that means
if you use a valid class name... say as a 'label' you'll get an error.

>    I haven't changed CVS as there may be other opinions and this change
> could be made an option instead of always being on.

Let's wait and see what other people say. Would it help if the "Update"
button was the default button?

ka