1 .SH

     2 Module flp

     3 .LP

     4 The flp module loads fl-forms from fd files, as generated

     5 by fdesign. The module is designed to be flexible enough to allow

     6 almost anything to be done with the loaded form.

     7 .LP

     8 Loadform defines 

     9 two types of functions: functions to parse fd files and functions to

    10 create the forms from the templates returned by the parse functions.

    11 There are fairly low-level create functions that create single objects,

    12 and convenience routines that create complete forms, including callbacks,

    13 etc.

    14 .LP

    15 The exception flp.error is raised whenever an error occurs while parsing a forms

    16 definition file or creating a form.

    17 .SH 2

    18 Parsing functions

    19 .LP

    20 There are two parsing functions, parse_form() and parse_forms(). They

    21 take the following form:

    22 .LP

    23 .ft C

    24 ftuple = parse_form(filename, formname)

    25 .br

    26 ftdict = parse_forms(filename)

    27 .IP

    28 Parse_form parses a single form, and returns a tuple (ftmp, otmplist).

    29 Ftmp is a template for a form, otmplist is a list of templates for

    30 objects. See below for a description of these templates.

    31 .IP

    32 Parse_forms parses all forms in an fd file. It returns a dictionary of

    33 (ftmp, otmplist) tuples, indexed by formname.

    34 .IP

    35 Filename is the name of the forms definition file to inspect. The functions

    36 appends '.fd' if needed, and use 'sys.path' to locate the file.

    37 .IP

    38 formname is the name of the form to load. This argument is mandatory,

    39 even if the file only contains one form.

    40 .LP

    41 The form template and object template are structures that contain all

    42 the information read from the fd file, in 'natural' form. A form

    43 template record contains the following fields:

    44 .IP

    45 .nf

    46 "Name", the name of the form;

    47 "Width", the width of the form;

    48 "Height", the height of the form; and

    49 "Numberofobjects", the number of objects in the form.

    50 .LP

    51 An object template contains the following fields:

    52 .IP

    53 .nf

    54 "Class", the class of object (eg. FL.BUTTON);

    55 "Type", the sub-class (eg. FL.NORMALBUTTON);

    56 "Box", a list with four members: [x, y, width, height];

    57 "Boxtype", the type of box (eg. FL.DOWNBOX);

    58 "Colors", a list with the two object colors;

    59 "Alignment", the label alignment (eg. FL.ALIGNLEFT); 

    60 "Style", the label style (eg. FL.BOLDSTYLE);

    61 "Lcol", the label color;

    62 "Label", a string containing the label;

    63 "Name", a string containing the name of the object;

    64 "Callback", a string containing the callback routine name; and

    65 "Argument", a string containing the callback routine extra argument.

    66 .SH

    67 Low-level create routines.

    68 .LP

    69 The three low-level creation routines are called as follows:

    70 .LP

    71 .ft C

    72 form = create_form(form_template)

    73 .IP

    74 Create an fl form from a form template. Returns the form created.

    75 .LP

    76 .ft C

    77 obj = create_object(form, obj_template)

    78 .IP

    79 Create an object in an fl form. Return the new object.

    80 An error is raised if the object has a callback routine.

    81 .SH

    82 High-level create routines.

    83 .LP

    84 The 'standard' way to handle forms in python is to define a class

    85 that contains the form and all the objects (insofar as they are named),

    86 and that defines all the callback functions, and use an instance of

    87 this class to handle the form interaction.

    88 Flp contains three routines that simplify handling this paradigm:

    89 .LP

    90 .ft C

    91 create_full_form(instance, ftuple)

    92 .IP

    93 This routine takes an instance of your form-handling class and an

    94 ftuple (as returned by the parsing routines) as parameters. It inserts

    95 the form into the instance, defines all object names and arranges that

    96 the callback methods are called. All the names inserted into the

    97 instance are the same as the names used for the objects, etc. in the

    98 fd file.

    99 .LP

   100 .ft C

   101 merge_full_form(instance, form, ftuple)

   102 .IP

   103 This function does the same as create_full_form, only it does not create

   104 the form itself nor the 'background box' that fdesign automatically

   105 adds to each form. This is useful if your class inherits a superclass

   106 that already defines a skeleton form (with 'OK' and 'Cancel' buttons,

   107 for instance), and you want to merge the new form into that existing

   108 form. The 'form' parameter is the form to which the new objects are

   109 added.

   110 .LP

   111 If you use the paradigm sketched here but need slightly more control

   112 over object creation there is a routine that creates a single object

   113 and inserts its name (and arranges for the callback routine to be

   114 called):

   115 .LP

   116 .ft C

   117 create_object_instance(instance, form, obj_template)