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Calculator special function Forms

Curtisma

I am trying to make a calculator function with a form.  However I am finding the documentation to do this lacking and have some questions about setting up the form and about setting the buffer.

The example provided uses a function "ahiCreateStringField" which is otherwise undocumented.  It seems to act exactly the same as "hiCreateStringField" (no "a" at the start")  However when I define a field using a function without the a and one using the function with the a in the same calculator form it doesn't display the form when you click on the function in the calculator.  I also noticed that I seem to be able to add other types of fields by taking a normal form function and appending "a" on the front.  However none of theses other functions are mentioned at all in the documentation.  

Form Questions

1. What is the functional difference between "ahiCreateStringField" and "hiCreateStringField"?

2. Do all of the form functions have an "a" equivalent?  Is there a way to check what arguments they accept?

Buffer Questions

3. Currently I am using "calCreateSpecialFunctionsForm"  to set the calculator buffer.  However this automatically puts the current buffer value as the first argument to my function. It seems like I could write my own CB function using "calSetBuffer" to set the buffer,  Is there anything else I need to take care of when I do this? 

4.  Also I am using "calCreateSpecialFunctionsForm"  but it seems like it would be more flexible to perform it's function myself to make a more advanced form. I could use "calRegisterSpecialFunction" to register the function, and "hiCreateForm" to open the form.  Is there anything else I need to take care of when I do this?  Would I then need to use the form functions without "a" appended?

Parents

  • Did you ever find good resolution to more dynamic forms for calculator functions?  I ran into that myself and ended up with a form that is probably more complicated than it needs to be.  What is interesting is there are even some built-in calculator functions that could benefit from this.  For example the psd function has a text box for entering a smoothing parameter which is only actually used by psd() when the window is set to Kaiser.  I had a case where you could enter something in one of two ways but not both.  An example would be entering a frequency or a period.  I ended up using tooltips to say users should enter "nil" in either the "frequency" box or the "period" box.  I would have preferred to have a cyclic to pick which and then have the form reflect that.  I noticed that the documentation for the ahiCreate* functions all vanished in 617 so perhaps they are headed for removal at some point.  Even if the form couldn't show/hide items, toggling the sensitivity would be helpful.

    Another example of the UI builder (which I basically like) limitations is a keyword argument that should always be set to a particular value when the function is used for the waveform calculator (causes it to return a waveform instead of a DPL which has the waveform and some key parameters).  The more full version is useful in ocean.  I could add a wrapper I suppose and just pass down all inputs and select the right output.  That just gives one more thing to maintain.  

    I did file a SR with some of this.  

  • in reply to drdanmc

    Hi Dan,

    I don't think the ahi.* functions have ever been properly documented; they've been alluded to in the documentation (e.g. for the examples related to the "old" way of adding calculator forms with the calCreateSpecialFunctionsForm), but never properly documented. That example is there in IC617 and IC616.

    I've been gradually working through my many calculator function examples and updating them to use the new UI builder capability. I agree that there are things that could be made more powerful here - I've filed a couple of enhancements for this even in the last week as I've been doing some pre-Christmas updating of some of my code and articles (not got through them all yet!) as we're building up a page which will be a library of custom calculator functions.

    So please do file those cases, and hopefully we can get this improved further. If you have a case number, I can check into it and add some weight to the CCR that gets filed.

    Thanks,

    Andrew.

Reply
  • in reply to drdanmc

    Hi Dan,

    I don't think the ahi.* functions have ever been properly documented; they've been alluded to in the documentation (e.g. for the examples related to the "old" way of adding calculator forms with the calCreateSpecialFunctionsForm), but never properly documented. That example is there in IC617 and IC616.

    I've been gradually working through my many calculator function examples and updating them to use the new UI builder capability. I agree that there are things that could be made more powerful here - I've filed a couple of enhancements for this even in the last week as I've been doing some pre-Christmas updating of some of my code and articles (not got through them all yet!) as we're building up a page which will be a library of custom calculator functions.

    So please do file those cases, and hopefully we can get this improved further. If you have a case number, I can check into it and add some weight to the CCR that gets filed.

    Thanks,

    Andrew.

Children
  • in reply to Andrew Beckett

    Case 46230572 is what I filed.  

    To be sure, there are some aspects which are nice.  The GUI makes it faster to build the form, the forms have a more consistent look and feel, and the preview button is pretty nice.   I found the descriptions of best practices ways of deploying for multiple users a big vague and the interactions between awvLoadCustomCalcFunction and the .ini files wasn't so clear. 

    -Dan

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