[Gambas-user] Concordance and reverse concordance for controls

[Bruce]

On 5/6/21 8:39 am, Brian G wrote:
> 
> Bruce,
> Or perhaps you mean an old fashioned cross reference listing...
> 
> --
> Thanks
> Brian G Friday, 04 June 2021, 03:25PM -07:00 from Bruce  adamnt42 at gmail.com :
> 
>> I have just spent the better part of a day trying to figure out how to
>> build a concordance and reverse concordance model for Gambas control
>> properties, methods and events.
>>
>> Having not got very far, I thought I may ask if anyone has done that or
>> something similar.
>>
>> tia
>> b
>>
>> ----[  http://gambaswiki.org/wiki/doc/netiquette ]----
>>
>>
>> ----[ http://gambaswiki.org/wiki/doc/netiquette ]----

Well, yep pretty well all three.

What I am trying to do is
a) given a pproperty or event in one control, what are all the other 
controls that have the same property or event.
b) given two controls, what properties or events do they share or hold
uniquely, similarly three,four etc controls (a "product comparison" if 
you like,
c) at the end of the day, what events affect what properties.

The reason for all this is that we have over eighty custom controls, 
many of which are what I'd call "custom composite controls" such as a 
"LabelTextBox" that consists of a horizontally arranged Label and a 
TextBox. These have to re-expose (or hide) some of the native TextBox 
properties and events. The goal is to reduce the amount of dulicated 
code, across these CCC's. For instance, "who has a border property?"

The whole mess is being rewritten (after 7-10 years of operation) into a 
"factory pattern" style of architecture, which may be illustrated as 
(even if a text model is confusing):

CCC <-- _LabelledXYZControl <-- _LabelledControl <-- UserContainer

(XYZ is a control"group")

_LabelledControl has two attributes, one for the label and one for the 
actual operative control "BaseControl" As 
UserControl/UserContainer/Other (yes there are some that are "labelled 
custom controls" of our own.

I am trying to move common procedures and event handlers as far up the 
inheritance chain as possible. For example, if every control had a 
"Text" property, which is patently not true, I could move methods that 
handle the Text up to the _LabelledControl level. Instead of the current 
code where say, the "Change" event is detected here there and everywhere 
depending on the CCC.

Trying to manually analyse what properties, events and handler methods 
exist for each CCC and whether they can be generalised is mind-bending. 
So if I could get a concordance for the native controls, thats more than 
half the job done.

Clear as mud, eh? But that's what I need to do.

bruce