Howto toggle a Button label depending on porperty ?

[mhab]

Hello

Can I change the label of a button in a GUI dialog, depending on a property ?

I tried to use <visible> tag to hide/show two different buttons, but the invisible button still consumes empty space instead of disappearing.

Thanks for any advice

Mike-DE

[Jabberwocky]

If those buttons are objects in an .ac, just do select animations on them depending on which one you want.
The other option is to have a button-object without a label at all and just do a texttranslate with a condition based on your property.

Code: Select all

    <animation>
        <type>select</type>
        <object-name>button_visible</object-name>
        <condition>
            <property>whatever your property is</property>
        </condition>
    </animation> 

    <animation>
        <type>select</type>
        <object-name>button_invisible</object-name>
        <condition>
            <not>
               <property>whatever your property is</property>
            </not>
        </condition>
    </animation>


[mhab]

Thanks for the reply,
but I did say --> "button in a GUI dialog"

So that's a different thing

[Thorsten]

The GUI dialog has an equivalent in the property tree (I guess you would usually specify that where you define the dialog pointer in Nasal) and the label is represented as a property there - which you can change runtime using setprop() .

[mhab]

OK

I was thinking of that, and I searched "sim/gui/dialogs/..." in the property tree but I cannot find the dialog there.
I have no idea where I can find e.g. the "formation" dialog, which is a standard FG dialog from "FG_HOME/data/gui/dialogs/formation.xml" and is opened through "dialog-show" command.

It seems not to be anywhere in the property tree ...

Thanks
Mike-DE

[Hooray]

Please see $FG_ROOT/Docs/README.gui (live properties) and refer to $FG_ROOT/gui/dialogs for examples.
The Nasal route mentioned above is unnecessarily complicated in this case, and would involve using a few gui related fgcommands (as per README.commands).
GUI dialogs don't generally reside in the global property tree, but a non-global/private object.
Obviously, Nasal/Canvas is a much more flexible method.

[Thorsten]

Please see $FG_ROOT/Docs/README.gui (live properties) and refer to $FG_ROOT/gui/dialogs for examples.

Well, I couldn't find how to change a button label runtime that way.

[Hooray]

correct, like I said, the dialog's property tree is not live once it is loaded (which is why only a few tags support property/live tags), so you have to manipulate the tree (like you said), but need to re-create the dialog as per the APIs in README.commands

For examples, you can refer to GUI dialogs that need to be very dynamic, e.g. the performance monitor or the multiplayer pilot list.

The aircraft generation wizard I once created is using this method to dynamically create a multi-page wizard with arbitrary pages - but this does involve re-initializing the dialog every time you modify it (via the props.nas module).

Personally, I would probably just use Nasal/Canvas for these things meanwhile

[Red Leader]

Hi mhab,

As Hooray has said, you could do it via Canvas GUI. However, that would be time-consuming. Canvas GUI is alright, but it needs a few more widgets before it can fully replace the current PLIB PUI.

Assuming that you want to change the button's label when it is clicked, this XML code should help:

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<PropertyList>

<!-- ... -->

<nasal>
   <open>
      var dlg_root = cmdarg();
      var n = props.Node.new({ "dialog-name": "test" });
      var toggle_label = func {
         if(dlg_root.getNode("button[1]/legend").getValue() == "Number 1"){
            dlg_root.getNode("button[1]/legend").setValue("Number 2");
         }else{
            dlg_root.getNode("button[1]/legend").setValue("Number 1");
         }
         fgcommand("dialog-close", n);
         fgcommand("dialog-show", n);
      }
   </open>
</nasal>

<!-- ... -->

<button>
   <legend>Number 1</legend>
   <binding>
      <command>nasal</command>
      <script>update_label();</script>
   </binding>
</button>

<!-- ... -->

</PropertyList>

All you need to do is change:

1. "dialog-name": "test" to match the name of your dialog.
2. the if condition.
3. the index of the button (in this case 1) to the correct (zero-based) index.
4. the labels used (obviously).

I hope that helps,
Red Leader

[Hooray]

note that this will dynamically modify/re-create the dialog using the aforementioned props.nas APIs and the corresponding GUI related fgcommands