Lab User Manual
The AJUI_Tip component is delivered with the AJUI_Tip_Lab application. This productivity application, provided with its source code on Github, is intended to become your creative and test laboratory for the implementation of the AJUI_Tip component.
AJUI_Tip_Lab is aimed at facilitating the integration of the "AJUI_Tip" component into your application. The three main advantages are:
- It shortens the development time required to define your Tips.
- It allows a dynamic visual rendering of your Tips.
- It offers a simple and fast management of your different models that can be imported into your own applications that use the AJUI_Tip component.
The Lab provides you with a graphical interface that exposes all properties with a dynamic display of the result.
Once you have obtained the expected graphical representation of your Tip, all you have to do is to save it as a template.
The Lab will allow you to create as many templates as you wish. It is supplied with a fairly large number of basic templates and covers a wide range of Tip types. You can duplicate these to make them available and thus serve as a basis for your own templates.
The application also provides you several HDI forms (How Do I) presenting different contexts of use of the AJUI_Tip component.
A template represents an instance of AJUI_Tip. The Lab allows you to access the different properties of this instance and modify their values.
To be able to manipulate these properties, the Lab offers a dynamic listbox containing the values of these properties. The user can interact with the listbox to modify these values as he would with the 4D form editor's property list window.
Some properties are associated with alternative buttons allowing you to open the color palette or to select a file path for images for example.
The lab is divided into three distinct parts. The first part concerns model management, including storage, creation, backup, deletion, etc.
The second part allows you to edit the different properties of your models.
The last part is the display area of the dynamic Tip.
The basic templates are stored in the /Resources/AJUI_Tip_Templates folder in the Lab application's resource folder. The templates in this folder are labeled with the suffix"(G)" in the template selection menu.
Two other folder locations are available for storing your templates: the Personal folder path (P) and the Shared folder path (S), which you can define at your convenience.
The Lab generates a preference file allowing you to change the paths to these two folders (the file is saved in your computer's preference folder).
Each time the Lab is launched, the application will check the preference file in order to recover the different templates present in the folders indicated in your preference file.
A filter is available, if you want to reduce the list of templates to a specific folder.
The Lab features eight buttons that allow you to manage your templates. The function of each of these buttons is indicated by a Tip that is displayed when the mouse hovers over them.
We will describe here what each of these features is used for.
This feature allows you to create a new model. The created template is automatically saved in the selected preference folder.
Creates a copy of the template in the same folder where it is located. The copy is suffixed as "_copy". If you duplicate the same template again without renaming its copy, it will be overwritten by the new duplicated file.
Allows you to rename the template and its specific folder if it has one.
Allows you to save the template in the selected preference folder. If you had chosen a template from the Global folder (G) and save it in your personal folder (P), the template in the Global folder is not moved to the personal folder (P) but is duplicated in the latter.
You can make a quick save using option + click (mac) or alt + click (window), this will pass the confirmation and save the template in the same location.
This will delete the selected template.
Allows you to clear current changes by reloading the template instance in the state it was in when it was last saved or when it was loaded if no saving has been made in the meantime.
This will make the properties of a model inaccessible and thus prevent them from being accidentally modified.
A banner is displayed when a template is protected.
This feature displays in code form the formulas of each property present in the listbox with their values passed as parameters. This code can be copied for future use in your applications if you do not want to import the model. It is also used as an example for the list of formulas.
The lab listbox marks properties in bold when the current value is different from the default value. By holding down the control key and left clicking on the property, you can set it back to its default value.
