Re: designing a self-installed plugin...

[Rafe Sacks <rafes(at)al.com.au>]

Title: RafeSignature

This is a bit long winded... let me know if it makes sense...

Strictly from a code design point of view, I like to keep my main code and UI separate. It makes changes easier to implement and it doesn't muddy up the top level code with a bunch of UI vs command line handling. I tend to put all code in objects then treat the menu as a user. In other words, I use the menu callbacks to run a short script which calls external code with the right variables. For example, lets say I have this library

function Library()
{
    this.DoSomething( iHowManyTimes )
    { 
       for ( var i - 0; i < iHowManyTimes; i++ )
       {
           LogMessage( "Doing Something..." );
       }
    }
}

Now lets say the above library is returned by a command called GetLibrary(). Lets also assume your scene property has a parameter called 'HowManyTimes'. The callback looks like this...

MenuCallback_DoSomething()
{
    var oProp = ActiveSceneRoot.Properties( "YourSceneProperty" );
   
    // All UI Work goes here...
    //    Inspect the property siModal
    //    If the user clicks ok, continue on, else quit.

    var iTimes   = oProp.HowManyTimes.Value;
    var oLibrary = GetLibrary();

    oLibrary.DoSomething( iTimes );
}

I find I almost never put code directly in commands these days. Usually, if a command is needed (which tends to only be the case when some special batch mode system is needed - human users should just know how to use my objects  ;-) ), I'll just wrap the object call in the command. It provides a buffer which makes code changes under-the-hood easy without affecting end users (human or otherwise).

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Steven Caron wrote:

Hey Everyone,

I have been having trouble deciding how to implement a set of scripts, menus, and properties together as one plug-in. I am hoping someone can share some insight.

i have some custom data/info that i need in the scene so the user can modify these defaults and store those changes to be exported later. so i need a self-installed property. for convenience i would like this property to be put in a menu in the UI so it can be called up easily/intuitively. so i need a self-installed menu. now here i am having trouble...

should i make a command that adds the property to the scene and use menu.AddCommandItem or should i use the menu.AddCallBackItem? AddCallBackItem seems easiest to implement because its just another function i make in the plugin and not actually register it as a command, but i wouldn't be able to call this function anyother way but by pressing the button.

are there any other reasons why one would use one or the other? i am hoping someone with a ton of experience in this area could guide me away from some pitfalls later because i still have probably 10 properties/commands that need menu items associated with them.

thanks

Steven