Alternative to lots of hidden feature params?

EvanReese

I'm doing a lot of UI logic that changes based on user selections. I'm doing it by using hidden boolean parameters and toggling them with editing logic. For example, the UI might look different depending on whether someone picks a vertex, edge, non-planar face, planar face, or nothing. My issue, is that there are getting to be quite a few of booleans. I also have some hidden integers for point indexes. I'd really love to be able to just have one hidden parameter that's a map of all of my booleans, then address it in the UI. I'd fill it with something like

{"pointIndex" : 1, "noSelection" : false, "isVertex" : false, "isEdge" : true, "isFace" : false, "isPlanarFace" : false}

Is there a way to do something like that? I can get by without it, but it just gets clickity-clackity to write, and fluffs up the code making it harder to read.

NeilCooke

You have to remember that the UI is a predicate so it cannot react to any logic created in the body of the script (apart from Editing Logic). 

kevin_o_toole_1

Evan_Reese said:

if (definition.UI.boolean1)
{
    *Other parameters to show*
}

Yes, in order to get conditional visibility you need the booleans listed out explicitly. Our UI only has logic for dealing with those explicitly listed parameters. It sounds like you've made the simplest functional solution.

EvanReese

I just realized I can probably use a hidden enum instead of a bunch of booleans for isVertex, isEdge etc. It would still be nice to have a single place to put all of the info that the UI references though.

caden_armstrong2

Closest solution you'd have would be to put all of the hidden parameters into a single predicate which gets called in your precondition.
Functionally, I don't think it would really differ too much from having a hidden parameter map as you are suggesting,
as in both cases you still need to have an if statement checking a map variable.

If your biggest gripe is a messy precondition, moving it away into a precondition would at least organize things.

EvanReese

That's a good idea, Caden. Thanks!

kevin_o_toole_1

You can also have a single "isAnything" field which contains a map/array/whatever data structure you want. That way you don't need to keep modifying the precondition to add new non-user-visible fields.

EvanReese

kevin_o_toole_1 said:

You can also have a single "isAnything" field which contains a map/array/whatever data structure you want. That way you don't need to keep modifying the precondition to add new non-user-visible fields.

Thanks, Kevin. I'd hoped that would work, but I'm not sure it's what I'm looking for. I'm wanting to hide and show UI parameters based on the contents, but it seems like I'm not able to access anything in the map. What I'd love to do is something like this:

annotation { "Name" : "UI settings"}

isAnything(definition.UI);

then in my precondition something like

if (definition.UI.boolean1)
{
*Other parameters to show*
}

I struggle with code formatting on the forums but here's an example script
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/74b868c81ffd51b8b4a9c6a5/w/facc72e9362395db8a26dc6b/e/3cbb4cc8c851cbb31b6aa7b0

NeilCooke

You have to remember that the UI is a predicate so it cannot react to any logic created in the body of the script (apart from Editing Logic). 

EvanReese

NeilCooke said:

You have to remember that the UI is a predicate so it cannot react to any logic created in the body of the script (apart from Editing Logic). 

Yeah, I get that. I'd just hoped there would be a way to store a lot of booleans or enums inside of one isAnything param and access them, but I think I can't get inside of an array or map within the predicate. It seems like only booleans, enums, and lookup tables can drive visibility of other parameters. Is that right?

kevin_o_toole_1

Evan_Reese said:

if (definition.UI.boolean1)
{
    *Other parameters to show*
}

Yes, in order to get conditional visibility you need the booleans listed out explicitly. Our UI only has logic for dealing with those explicitly listed parameters. It sounds like you've made the simplest functional solution.

EvanReese

Thanks folks. For future readership, if you have a number of independent things to control in the UI via editing logic, use booleans. If you have a lot of mutually exclusive options, you can use an enum. You can't access anything in a container (i.e. map, array etc) within the precondition, so creating a map of booleans won't work.