On Nov 24, 2006, at 4:42 PM, Brian Rice wrote:
> On Nov 24, 2006, at 1:10 PM, Andreas Raab wrote:
>>> - One issue I had was trying to recreate the "Search" button that  
>>> in the original, took the search field as its model and called  
>>> #accept on it to kick off a search. In a builder interface, you  
>>> can't do this, because you only get the specification objects and  
>>> not the output. In fact, you're not supposed to be able to access  
>>> the output. I thought about work-arounds, but they all involved  
>>> propagating the search field text to the model on every keystroke  
>>> and then having the button call a method on the model that uses  
>>> that, or making a trampoline in the model that the search field  
>>> would watch... except that it can't do that. So the search button  
>>> had to go, because ToolBuilder can't do that easily.
>>
>> Yes, that is true.
>
> Maybe it can be fixed by detecting that a model is a Spec and then  
> remembering that in an IdentityDictionary and then mapping it to  
> the output. I don't know how feasible that is, but it's seems like  
> it'd work reasonably.

It's time for me to backtrack again - I was wrong about this in the  
general sense. There *is* a Dictionary mapping widgets to outputs.  
More specifically, it maps the names of widgets to outputs, which is  
good enough, and accessible via widgetAt:(ifAbsent:). I missed this  
because the abstract ToolBuilder class doesn't have a dictionary  
instvar, just the protocol, even if all concrete subclasses use it.  
Also, there is no code making use of this feature, but it works fine.

What has to happen is that the model that calls the builder should  
retain the builder or at least its widgets dictionary after building.  
I am writing up a ToolModel class to make an easy way to do this and  
hopefully a few other things by default.

I am approaching the point where I may be able to write an article  
about the use of ToolBuilder, probably on Squeak People or I may blog  
it elsewhere.

--
-Brian
http://briantrice.com

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