ControlBase Class Reference
#include <ControlBase.h>
Inheritance diagram for ControlBase:
Detailed Description
Base class for all items in the Controller hierarchy.These are similar to behaviors in that they can do processing and are told when to start and stop.
However, the important difference is that these have to follow a much tighter set of guidelines for a more refined purpose - user interface. Controls do not directly receive events - the Controller will process events for them and call the appropriate functions at the appropriate times. Controls are expected to fit into a heirarchical scheme, where each control (except the root) has a parent which created it, and may return its own children where appropriate.
Controls can be very powerful, and a class can be both a behavior and a control. This allows integrated user interface to controlling a complex behavior. Some controls may simply need EventListener access instead to perform a few tricks. Mix and match as you see fit. (multiple inheritance can be nice if it's planned for, as these have been)
This base class will do most of the work of maintaining submenus for you, and will call appropriate virtual functions which you are expected to override. Controls generally live in Behaviors/Controls/ as the Controller itself is a behavior, and these controls merely its tools.
The ControlBase pointers which are returned at various points are the responsibility of the creator. Controller will not delete them upon deactivation.
GUI Theory:
There are 3 levels to the user interface.
- Robot/Local: Uses the buttons for input, and LEDs and sounds for immediate feedback. No external resources needed
- Text: Uses a console to display/request information.
- GUI: Uses a graphical interface on a desktop machine
Obviously, higher levels require more technological resources, which also means there's more to go wrong and debug. However, another important distinction between the first level and the others is that the first level does not require the user to lose direct contact with the robot. Requiring the user to move back and forth from robot to computer can be much more frustrating than decoding LED signals or press head buttons. There are also safety issues when triggering behaviors remotely if the robot is out of immediate reach. But of course, having a GUI and text output is extremely valuable in terms of ease of use and efficiency.
So, the lesson is to try to support all 3 levels so that your interfaces will be robust and efficient in a variety of environments. You'll thank yourself when you're demoing on the road and you can't get wavelan up, or the guest machine you're supposed to use doesn't have Java, or whatever.
- Todo:
- ControlBase's should use ReferenceCounter so memory management is not an issue
- See also:
- Controller, NullControl
Definition at line 65 of file ControlBase.h.
Public Member Functions | |
Constructors/Destructors | |
| ControlBase () | |
| Contructor. | |
| ControlBase (const std::string &n) | |
| Contructor, initializes with a name. | |
| ControlBase (const std::string &n, const std::string &d) | |
| Contructor, initializes with a name. | |
| virtual | ~ControlBase () |
| Destructor. | |
Controller Functions | |
You probably want to override some of these, call the ControlBase functions from your code if you want default sound effects (or look in Config::controller_config). | |
| virtual ControlBase * | activate (MotionManager::MC_ID disp_id, Socket *gui) |
| Called when the control is activated (or the control system is reactivating). | |
| virtual void | pause () |
| called when a control is being overriden by a child, or the control system is deactivating (e-stop being turned off) | |
| virtual void | refresh () |
| called when the child has deactivated and this control should refresh its display, or some other event (such as the user pressing the refresh button) has happened to cause a refresh to be needed | |
| virtual void | deactivate () |
| called when this control is being popped from the control stack | |
| virtual ControlBase * | doSelect () |
| when the user has trigger an "open selection" - default is to return the hilighted control*/ | |
| virtual ControlBase * | doNextItem () |
when the user wants to increment the control - default is to hilight the first non-null slot after the last hilight, and return this | |
| virtual ControlBase * | doPrevItem () |
when the user wants to decrement the control - default is to hilight the last non-null slot before the first hilight, and return this | |
| virtual ControlBase * | doCancel () |
| when the user wants to cancel - you should almost always return NULL now unless you need to override the cancel in order to confirm something (e.g. "Save changes?") | |
| virtual ControlBase * | doReadStdIn (const std::string &prompt=std::string()) |
| prompt the user for text input on the current input device (cin, tekkotsu console (sout), or GUI) | |
| virtual ControlBase * | takeInput (const std::string &msg) |
| called when the user has supplied a text string (may or may not have been prompted by doReadStdIn()! May not even be active yet - the user can direct the same input to a set of hilighted menus) | |
| virtual bool | validInput (const std::string &msg) |
| may be called before takeInput to verify this Control can make sense of msg | |
Accessors | |
| virtual ControlBase & | setName (const std::string &n) |
| sets the name of the control | |
| virtual std::string | getName () const |
| returns the name of the control | |
| virtual ControlBase & | setDescription (const std::string d) |
| sets the description of the control | |
| virtual std::string | getDescription () const |
| returns a short description of what the control does | |
|
virtual const std::vector< ControlBase * > & | getSlots () const |
| returns the vector of sub-controls | |
| virtual std::string | getSlotName (unsigned int i) const |
| returns the string that will appear in slot i | |
| virtual unsigned int | slotsSize () const |
| returns the number of options available | |
| virtual void | setSlot (unsigned int i, ControlBase *o) |
| sets i'th element of options to o | |
| virtual void | pushSlot (ControlBase *o) |
| sets next unused element of options to o | |
| virtual void | clearSlots () |
| deletes each slot item and clears the slots | |
|
virtual const std::vector< unsigned int > & | getHilights () const |
| returns a vector of the indicies of hilighted slots | |
| virtual void | setHilights (const std::vector< unsigned int > &hi) |
| sets the hilighted slots | |
| virtual void | hilightFirst () |
| sets the hilight to the first non-null slot | |
| virtual MotionManager::MC_ID | getDisplay () |
| returns display being used | |
| virtual ControlBase & | setDisplay (MotionManager::MC_ID d) |
| sets display to use | |
Protected Member Functions | |
| virtual void | clearMenu () |
| clears the display (if use_VT100 is on) | |
| virtual ControlBase * | invalidInput (const std::string &msg, bool ambiguous) |
| called by takeInput if the input doesn't match any slots or matches multiple slots -- the ControlBase implementation displays an error and returns itself | |
| float | hilightsAvg () const |
| returns the average of the hilighted indicies - used to know to play the "next" sound, or the "prev" sound when the hilight changes | |
Protected Attributes | |
| std::string | name |
| the name of this control | |
| std::string | description |
| the description of this control | |
| std::vector< unsigned int > | hilights |
| keep sorted - index(es) of current selection - can have multiple if using GUI | |
| std::vector< ControlBase * > | options |
| vector of controls to select from | |
| bool | doRewrite |
| toggles using VT100 codes to reposition the cursor at the beginning of the menu | |
| MotionManager::MC_ID | display_id |
| LedMC to use for displaying selection. | |
| Socket * | gui_comm |
| socket to communicate with the GUI, if it is connected | |
Private Member Functions | |
| ControlBase (const ControlBase &) | |
| you can override, but don't call this... | |
| ControlBase & | operator= (const ControlBase &) |
| you can override, but don't call this... | |
Member Function Documentation
| virtual ControlBase* ControlBase::activate | ( | MotionManager::MC_ID | disp_id, | |
| Socket * | gui | |||
| ) | [virtual] |
Called when the control is activated (or the control system is reactivating).
Takes the id number of a LedMC which the control should use, maintained by Controller. Controls share the display which is passed, and may use the socket gui to communicate with the GUI controller, if it is connected.
- Returns:
- a ControlBase pointer. Return:
- this if the control should stay active (if it's not a one-shot command)
NULLto return to parent- other address to spawn a child control
Reimplemented in PostureEditor, TorqueCalibrate::TakeMeasurementControl, and WaypointWalkControl.
Referenced by WalkCalibration::activate(), ValueEditControl< T >::activate(), FileBrowserControl::activate(), BehaviorSwitchControlBase::activate(), BatteryCheckControl::activate(), and doSelect().
| ControlBase * ControlBase::doCancel | ( | ) | [virtual] |
when the user wants to cancel - you should almost always return NULL now unless you need to override the cancel in order to confirm something (e.g. "Save changes?")
The value which is returned is then activate()ed and pushed on the Controller's stack, you probably want to return NULL
Definition at line 185 of file ControlBase.cc.
| ControlBase * ControlBase::doNextItem | ( | ) | [virtual] |
when the user wants to increment the control - default is to hilight the first non-null slot after the last hilight, and return this
The value which is returned is then activate()ed and pushed on the Controller's stack, so you probably want to return this
Reimplemented in NullControl, and ValueEditControl< T >.
Definition at line 149 of file ControlBase.cc.
| ControlBase * ControlBase::doPrevItem | ( | ) | [virtual] |
when the user wants to decrement the control - default is to hilight the last non-null slot before the first hilight, and return this
The value which is returned is then activate()ed and pushed on the Controller's stack, so you probably want to return this
Reimplemented in NullControl, and ValueEditControl< T >.
Definition at line 167 of file ControlBase.cc.
| ControlBase * ControlBase::doReadStdIn | ( | const std::string & | prompt = std::string() |
) | [virtual] |
prompt the user for text input on the current input device (cin, tekkotsu console (sout), or GUI)
The value which is returned is then activate()ed and pushed on the Controller's stack, so you probably want to return this
Reimplemented in NullControl, and StringInputControl.
Definition at line 191 of file ControlBase.cc.
Referenced by StringInputControl::doReadStdIn(), WalkCalibration::processEvent(), and WalkCalibration::takeInput().
| ControlBase * ControlBase::doSelect | ( | ) | [virtual] |
when the user has trigger an "open selection" - default is to return the hilighted control*/
The value which is returned is then activate()ed and pushed on the Controller's stack
Reimplemented in BatteryCheckControl, ConfigurationEditor::NewCollectionEntry, ConfigurationEditor::NamedEnumerationEditor, EventLogger, FileBrowserControl, MCValueEditControl< T >, NullControl, RebootControl, SensorObserverControl, ShutdownControl, ToggleControl, ValueEditControl< T >, WalkCalibration, WaypointWalkControl, and WaypointWalkControl::WaypointEditControl.
Definition at line 108 of file ControlBase.cc.
Referenced by WaypointWalkControl::WaypointEditControl::doSelect(), WaypointWalkControl::doSelect(), WalkCalibration::doSelect(), FileBrowserControl::doSelect(), ConfigurationEditor::NewCollectionEntry::doSelect(), and takeInput().
| ControlBase * ControlBase::invalidInput | ( | const std::string & | msg, | |
| bool | ambiguous | |||
| ) | [protected, virtual] |
called by takeInput if the input doesn't match any slots or matches multiple slots -- the ControlBase implementation displays an error and returns itself
- Parameters:
-
msg the input originally sent to takeInput() ambiguous true if the input matched more than one item, false if it didn't match any
Reimplemented in FileInputControl.
Definition at line 396 of file ControlBase.cc.
Referenced by FileInputControl::invalidInput(), and takeInput().
| ControlBase * ControlBase::takeInput | ( | const std::string & | msg | ) | [virtual] |
called when the user has supplied a text string (may or may not have been prompted by doReadStdIn()! May not even be active yet - the user can direct the same input to a set of hilighted menus)
The value which is returned is then activate()ed and pushed on the Controller's stack
Reimplemented in BehaviorSwitchControlBase, FileBrowserControl, NullControl, SavePostureControl, SaveWalkControl, StringInputControl, TorqueCalibrate::TakeMeasurementControl, ValueEditControl< T >, and WalkCalibration.
Definition at line 222 of file ControlBase.cc.
Referenced by doReadStdIn(), Controller::select(), WalkCalibration::takeInput(), NullControl::takeInput(), FileBrowserControl::takeInput(), BehaviorSwitchControlBase::takeInput(), and Controller::takeLine().
Member Data Documentation
bool ControlBase::doRewrite [protected] |
toggles using VT100 codes to reposition the cursor at the beginning of the menu
we don't always want to do this, any time someone else might have written to the display we set this to false so we don't overwrite it.
Definition at line 158 of file ControlBase.h.
Referenced by deactivate(), doSelect(), pause(), refresh(), DumpFileControl::selectedFile(), and takeInput().
The documentation for this class was generated from the following files:
