3D PLM Enterprise Architecture

What Are the Edit->Properties Property Sheets?

A property sheet is a tabbed dialog box, each tab containing a property page. It enables the end user to work with many properties gathered in a single place, rather than to display several dialog boxes accessed each from a different menu. Each property page contains various controls to set values or options for one or several properties to manage element's persistent parameters that the end user can modify. When the end user clicks on a tab, the controls for the properties are displayed and the end user can alternatively display different property pages by clicking on different tabs. A property sheet can be accessed using the Edit->Properties menu, and applies to the element(s) currently selected. It can also be accessed from the Properties item of an element's contextual menu.

Other property pages can exist, namely those dedicated to the application, or to a given workshop, and accessed using the Tools->Options menu [1]. These property pages manage parameters or attributes that are independent from the current selection and are of general purpose. Their values are saved into, and retrieved from, setting files.

The Edit->Properties property sheet dialog box displays a property page for each property available for the current selection. For example, below is a property sheet with two property pages named Graphic and Texture respectively.

The Graphic property page is provided by the application and the selected objects need to implement the CATIVisProperties interface for all these properties. If the object does not implement this interface, the page is not displayed.

Each property page displays controls to set parameter values or working options for its related property. These values are read from the element when the property sheet is built. The dialog box works as follows:

• Clicking OK commits all the changed values and options in all the property pages modified or simply scanned, that is saves the values and options into the selected object(s), and closes the Properties dialog box.
• Clicking Apply saves the values and options into the selected object(s), but lets the dialog box open. Parameter modifications are taken into account, and the selected objects change accordingly. This turns the Cancel button into Close, meaning that modifications cannot be undone, unless the end user reenters the values and options as they were before. For example, in the dialog box below, the Apply button was clicked, and Close displays instead of Cancel.
  
• Clicking Cancel closes the Properties dialog box. Since Apply was not clicked, no property was changed.
• Clicking Close closes the Properties dialog box. Since Apply was clicked, the property values are those set by the last click on Apply.

When the end user clicks Edit->Properties, or the Properties item of an object's contextual menu, the property pages are built as follows:

• The first time, the interface dictionary is scanned to retrieve all the interfaces implemented by the CATEditorManager object. This object is used by the application to create and manage property pages. Then the factory dictionary is scanned to check whether these interfaces are factory interfaces, and each factory interface is requested to create an instance of the class it is dedicated to, that is a property editor
• The CSO contents is retrieved and passed to the ExtractFromSelection method of each property editor
• The ExtractFromSelection method determines whether the object(s) in the CSO implements the property interface(s) this property editor deals with, and if this is the case, the property page editor creates the property page dialog to be displayed in the property sheet.

To help improve performance when creating the Properties dialog box, you can decide to hide some properties. Their property page editors are not created, as well as their dialogs. The Properties dialog box shows a More... push button that the end user can press to display these properties. To enable property pages to be displayed by default, the document objects must implement the CATIRootProperties interface. The GetListOfEditors method returns the property page editors to instantiate. Otherwise, the property pages are created when the end user presses More.

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Creating Your Property Page

To create your property page, you need to consider having objects that implement one or several property interfaces, that is, interfaces that derive from CATIEditProperty. If this is the case, you need to create:

• A property page editor
  It retrieves the selected objects from the CSO, checks whether they implement the appropriate property interface, retrieves the selected object properties, creates and manages the dialog displayed and its controls, and apply or cancel the modifications entered in the dialog.
• A property page dialog
  It gathers the different controls that enable the end user to see and edit the selected object properties.

Since you new properties and their property pages when you wish, the property page editor instantiation mechanism relies on factories. You need first to create a factory interface, and then implement it to create the property page factory.

Let's detail the tasks to do to create a property page, whose editor is CAAPPEdt.

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Creating the Property Page Editor Factory

You need:

• To create the property page editor factory interface
  The CAAIPPEdtFactory interface derives from the CATIGenericFactory interface.

  

• To create the property page editor factory
  The factory class can be creates using macros in the header and source files.

  

• To update the interface dictionary and the factory dictionary.

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Creating the Property Page Editor

You'll now create the class for the property page. This class derives from the CATEditor class, implements the CATIEditProperties interface and overrides the methods shown in the diagram below.

These methods are those of the CATIEditProperties interface and are either pure virtual or empty in their CATEditor implementation. You should provide their body to make them play the following role:

• ExtractFromSelection returns the list of objects found in the Current Set of Objects (CSO) that implement the property interface
• GetEditorTitle returns the property page title
• SetEditorSize lets you request which size you need to accommodate your property page, among the possible values: small, medium, or large
• BuildEditor instantiates the associated dialog class
• SetPropertyValue sets the values and options in the property page dialog from the objects
• CommitModification applies to the selected objects the modifications made to values and options in the property page dialog.
• CancelModification is empty, but exists and could be used to delete temporary objects that could possibly be allocated in previous methods
• CloseWindowFromEditor is called whenever the end user selects another property page.

The methods ExtractFromSelection, GetEditorTitle, SetEditorSize, BuildEditor, and SetPropertyValue are executed in this order when instantiating the property page.

When the end user clicks:

• OK, the CommitModification method is executed and the window is closed
• Apply,  the CommitModification method is executed, but the window is not closed
• Cancel, the CancelModification method is executed and the window is closed
• Close, the window is closed.

SetPropertyValue, CommitModification, and CancelModification call in turn the methods with the same name of the associated dialog class.

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Creating the Property Page Dialog

This dialog is a class that derives from CATDlgFrame. You can create and arrange the controls, and possibly other dialog objects, such as separators, frames, and so on, to help control arrangement.

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In Short

Creating a property page for the Edit->Properties menu implies to create a property page editor factory, a property page editor class instantiated by this factory, and to supply a property page dialog class gathering the controls to access the parameters and values of the object's properties you let the end user access and modify.

To be extracted from the Current Set of Objects (CSO), the objects should implement the property interface(s) to which this property page is dedicated.

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References

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