I have a tree control in my GUI (with naturally lots of GUI/platform specific functions to handle the nodes).
I have a data model with its own complex set of nodes, children, properties etc..
I want the tree to display a representation of the model, be able to send messages to the nodes inside the model and be told to redraw itself when the model changes.
But I don't want the GUI code to need to know the details of the model's data types and I don't want to pollute the model by linking it to the GUI classes.
I can't get my head around how the controller is supposed to do this and what functions it should provide?
(this is in C++ but that shouldn't matter)
GUI "controls" don't quite fit neatly into a model-view-controller pattern because they typically have their own internal model rather than accepting a reference to one. If the control is structured that way, you'll need an adapter class that "data-binds" the control's internal model to the underlying data model.
This can accomplish something similar to what model-view-controller would, except that the adapter class plays the role both of a view hookup component (updating the GUI from the data model) and a controller (interpreting GUI events into model actions).
Qt provides a group of classes for model-view programming. You can hook a tree view to a filesystem model, for example, and neither directly know anything about each other (except a pointer to the model in the view).
Your requirements are:
Tree displays representation of model
Nodes in tree can send messages to nodes inside model
Tree redraws itself based on model changes
I don't know exactly what kind of data you're working with here, but a hierarchical model is a fairly simple thing. I'll take it as a given you know how to iterate hierarchical data and populate a tree view.
Your controller should have member function(s) for sending messages to the model. The parameters should be a model element and the message you want to send. This way, the UI is completely unaware of how the message gets to the element, but can get the messages through.
The last requirement is more tricky, and depends on a few things (e.g., the lifetime of the controller, application architecture, etc.) I'm going to assume the controller lives as long as the tree view does. If that's the case, then your controller should provide a way to set a callback on model changes. Then, when the controller changes the model, it can callback to the UI without being aware of the UI.
i think your troubles start with an unfortunate choice of words. the 'control' thingies doesn't have anything to do with the 'controller' in MVC. that's why some GUI libraries use other names (widgets is a common one).
your 'tree control' is the view, not the controller. it should be tied to the GUI, both for display, and to get GUI events and turn them into 'tree events'.
the controller gets those 'tree events' and does the necessary modifications to the model. that's where you couple the 'action' with the 'response'.
First Solution: You can implement a "Subject observer" pattern between model and view, with model as the subject and view as the observer. Whenever there is a change in the state of model, it can fire a event to all the observers those are registered, they can update themselves.
Second Solution: Introduce a controller, which registers with model as observer. Upon receiving a event for update from Model, it can update the view. Even you can decouple view from controller using one more subject observer pattern between controller and view
Third Solution: Use MVP pattern. Model view Presenter. This pattern used whenever there is no much computation in controller i.e., job of the controller is just to update its corresponding view. Here controller becomes Presenter.
You need a controller that sits outside the display widget but has the state of the tree (in MFc there are CTreeView/CTreeCtrl classes - there is a similiar separation in Qt) the tree controller handles all the data storage and calls redraws on the tree widget.
Changes in the tree widget get sent to the tree controller - so this controller needs to know about the gui functions.
The model will need set/get functions for all the relevant parameters for the nodes. But these can return simple types so aren't dependent on the gui.
Updating the view form the model requires sending a message, if you don't want the model to know about your gui messaging the best you can do is register a callback function (a void pointer to a function) from the tree controller - and call this to do an update.
This update function can then query the model for the changes.
Related
I have 2 different types components. They both only use and contain an HTML5-canvas element, but need to show different types of data on a chart:
Component A (Only ever 1 of these)
Component B (0 to 4 of these)
Both components need the dateTime of the first data-entry from the two data-sets, but the dateTime of the last entry comes from their own respective data-sets.
Component A needs its first entry date from Component B.
Currently I do it like this:
Component B has the method that finds the date-limits from its own dataset. Using an Observer-pattern & Subjects, I broadcasts the returned dates through a service and into Component A.
The problem with this though, is that coupling suddenly becomes pretty tight. I can't initialize component A first, because it needs B to do its calculation first. Both components ideally should initialize and show/share their data simultaneously, and continue to do so. (E.g. If a user scrolls in one chart it should scroll all other components too, and so on.)
This is why I wanted an extra layer added on top of these components. A controller if you will.
I can't figure out what's best though:
A shared service that can take external data as input?
A container component? (Transclusion)
Another component, Component C, that A & B are children of?
As I'm still new to Angular 2, it's hard to tell which approach is best for future maintenance/development?
I'm being drawn towards creating another normal component as a parent, and have this component send and receive data to/from its children (A & B) as necessary.
I'm also uncertain as to what's "best practice" and if you can just use a component like an empty 'logic shell'. I've tried reading here and there, and I've found a lot, but I can't seem to get an exact answer to my question. It'll take time before I can comprehend all this knowledge and answer it myself, so I'm hoping someone could give me a helping nudge, thanks.
PS: I should add that my angular application will be a child-component in larger application, and will get its data from some other parent comp.
Why don't you put your logic into services?
You can also set up service hierarchies by injecting sub-services into a parent service.
If your logic is not UI / interaction related, you should put it into reusable services. If your logic is UI related, you could set up a parent component acting as a mediator between A and B (acting on their respective input/output parameters)
Whatever you do, it is a good idea to keep concerns separate.
Both A and B should not need to care about other components needing their output. Angular has Input/Output parameters for that.
Don't put some generic datetime calculation stuff into components. Make it reusable through services.
Keep coupling loose by introducing interfaces and injections.
Update:
Services should only use injectable constructor parameters, so you should pass your input using methods (or setters, but that is less expressive).
To pass arbitrary JSON objects, you could utilize any parameters. However if your json follows a certain structure, you could define an interface.
public doStuff(input: any): any { }
or
interface IMyDataContract {
dateField: string;
}
public doStuff(input: IMyDataContract): any { }
In my Windows Phone App there's a simple hierarchical model consisting of a class containing a collection of other domain objects.
In my xaml i have declared an ItemsContainer control that renders the items in the above mentioned collection as simple rectangles.
Now, at the VM level i have a structure that resembles my model with a parent VM having a collection of children VMs. Each child-VM encapsulates its own model.
Whenever the user taps the view bound to a child-VM a method of the parent-model object should be invoked taking the relevant child-model as parameter. This will in turn change some internal state that will be reflected (possibly) on all the child-views (not just the tapped one).
SO... given that i'm using the MVVM Light framework my current implementation is as follows:
Child-VM exposes a command
The command Execute method will use the messenger to notify the parent-VM of the tap event. The message (GenericMessage class) content will be the domain object encapsulated by the VM
The parent-VM executes the method of the parent-model using the message content as parameter
If the operation succeeds the parent-VM sends a new message to inform child-VMs of this fact. Once again the message content is the model object used as parameter in the method that was just invoked
Child-VMs raise a couple of PropertyChanged events that, finally, will update the bound views
It works but i fill it's a bit cumbersome. The thing that bugs me the most is the fact that when a child-view is tapped the associated VM will broadcast its encapsulated model object. Do you feel that there would be a better way of implementing such a system?
Thanks in advance for your precious help
Could you not just put the command on the parent viewmodel and pass the child viewmodel as the command parameter?
The parent view model can then just call methods on the child viewmodels to update them. I'm not sure I see the need for all these messages?
First off, I've done a lot of research on the web (including this site) and have found lots of conflicting information on how the model and controller communicate in an MVC pattern. Here is my specific question (I'm using AS3), but it's a general MVC question...
I have two main components... a list of recipes and a form that displays a selected recipe. The form has an edit state that allows you to edit the recipe and then save or cancel the changes. What is the best way (using MVC principles) to handle changes made to a recipe? So far, I have the save button trigger an event which is captured by the controller.
Should I have the save button (the view) pass an object with the current state of the fields along with the event (some logic in view)? Should I allow the controller to hold access to the view and have the controller figure out what's in the fields on its own (added coupling)? Should events be made every time a field in the form is changed and the controller keeps track of the state of each field (lots of events)? Or is their another way? Note: I don't want to bind the fields to the model because I only want the data to save if the save button is clicked.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Should I have the save button (the view) pass an object with the
current state of the fields along with the event (some logic in view)?
yes, this is not 'logic in the view', it does not decide anything, simply reporting an action and its current state
Should I allow the controller to hold access to the view and have the
controller figure out what's in the fields on its own (added
coupling)?
no, this would become very messy, pass a VO with the event
Should events be made every time a field in the form is changed and
the controller keeps track of the state of each field (lots of
events)?
is an option, but this basically is the same as hitting the save button, the trigger is different (TextField.onChange), but you can dispatch the same event (setup is form = view, dispatches one general event with a VO, not an event for each field)
Or is their another way?
MVC flow w/ events:
onClick save btn: a RecipeEvent.SAVE is dispatched (from the view), with a VO (value object) containing the Recipe data (e.g. RecipeVO)
the controller catches this, and as the controller is where the logic resides, it decides what to do with it: update the RecipesModel (either directly by calling a method on the model, or by a custom event e.g. RecipeModelEvent.SAVE)
the model stores the data, and dispatches the RecipeEvent.UPDATE event (with the RecipeVO)
the views updated itself accordingly (check if the RecipeVO.ID is same, update data representation e.g. title…)
optionally, a controller could save the data to a back-end/remote database
As for the event listeners: views listen to the model, controller listen to the views.
About de-coupling:
use interfaces (by using an IModel you can swap out the model easily by another implementation, as you register the event listeners against the interface instead of the actual implementation)
Obviously, all this results in a lot of registering/removing event listeners, and keeping reference to the models/views/controllers to be able to register to the appropriate instance. An alternative is to use a framework as RobotLegs, as it makes a central event-bus available + easy/automatic cleanup of event listeners in the mediator class of a view.
I think this is really a database question. what I would do is create a stored procedure that first checks to see if the recipe already exists. If yes then update it. If not then add a new recipe. (you'll have to bind your entity to a stored procedure. other MVC frameworks can do this. I don't know about actionscript)
if that's not an option then I guess you would have to cache the original form in a helper class in the controller and then compare it to what the user is trying to save. And have the controller decide whether to update the recipe.
I think it's much cleaner to use the first way, but I've never used actionscript so...
Colin Moock's lecture on MVC in ActionScript is quite old, but still one of the best explications: http://www.moock.org/lectures/mvc/
Your model should populate your view, and your view should send input events to the controller, which should decide what to do with the input. As g10 says, wait until the save button is clicked and then pass an object with the modified fields up to the controller for processing. The controller can then decide whether or not to accept it, and whether to update an existing model object or create a new one.
I am considering using class extension as a way to connect my model with my controller. I tried looking on the internet but could not find any information on this topic. This led me to the question of when a class should be extended and for what reasons.
This is my plan:
model class
controller extends model
new controller();
new view(controller);
Reason:
I can make all methods and variables that the view should not touch or alter protected (i.e. protected var myVar:String). This enables me to ensure that the view still has access to the data it needs but is unable to make accidental changes.
This whole thought process derived from the fact that I don't want my view to have any influence whatsoever, while still remaining independent (i.e. I can have multiple views of the same model without having to tell the controller that an additional view has been added).
To summarize:
When should a class be extended? When should it be avoided?
Is my plan a valid implementation of MVC?
Is there a better way to disconnect the view in a way that meets my demands?
Thank you for reading till the end.
The controller shouldn't extend the model - they do two separate things in the MVC triad and therefore should be two different classes. A valid reason to extend the Model class would be to add an extra feature to it, for example BigModel
Heres a summary of each part of MVC structure
The model manages the behavior and data of the application domain
The view renders the model into a form suitable for interaction, typically a user interface element
The controller receives input and initiates a response by making calls on model objects.
Your view will not have access to the protected methods of the model/controller. Protected does not mean read only, it means that only classes that extend the base class can access the protected properties or methods.
To have read only attributes in your model you should look at using private/protected properties and then creating a public getter function for each property (Property can then be read but not set).
Also to have access to the model from the view consider creating the Model as a Singleton so it can be accessed from anywhere in your application.
The controller dosen't usually do much else than listen for and dispatch events/notifications, sometimes for small projects you can make your Model class (Singleton) extend EventDispatcher and have it pretty much do everything you want, but this is not pure MVC and can quickly lead to technical debt if the project scope grows.
I am looking for some help with designing some functionality in my application. I already have something similar designed but this problem is a little different.
Background:
In my application we have different Modules. Data in each module can be associated to other modules. Each Module is represented by an Object in our application.
Module 1 can be associated with Module 2 and Module 3. Currently I use a factory to provide the proper DAO for getting and saving this data.
It looks something like this:
class Module1Factory {
public static Module1BridgeDAO createModule1BridgeDAO(int moduleid) {
switch (moduleId)
{
case Module.Module2Id: return new Module1_Module2DAO();
case Module.Module3Id: return new Module1_Module3DAO();
default: return null;
}
}
}
Module1_Module2 and Module1_Module3 implement the same BridgeModule interface. In the database I have a Table for every module (Module1, Module2, Module3). I also have a bridge table for each module (they are many to many) Module1_Module2, Module1_Module3 etc.
The DAO basically handles all code needed to manage the association and retrieve its own instance data for the calling module. Now when we add new modules that associate with Module1 we simply implement the ModuleBridge interface and provide the common functionality.
New Development
We are adding a new module that will have the ability to be associated with other Modules as well as specific properties of that module. The module is basically providing the user the ability to add their custom forms to our other modules. That way they can collect additional information along with what we provide.
I want to start associating my Form module with other modules and their properties. Ie if Module1 has a property Category, I want to associate an instance From data with that property.
There are many Forms. If a users creates an instance of Module2, they may always want to also have certain form(s) attached to that Module2 instance. If they create an instance of Module2 and select Category 1, then I may want additional Form(s) created.
I prototyped something like this:
Form
FormLayout (contains the labels and gui controls)
FormModule (associates a form with all instances of a module)
Form Instance (create an instance of a form to be filled out)
As I thought about it I was thinking about making a new FormModule table/class/dao for each Module and Property that I add. So I might have:
FormModule1
FormModule1Property1
FormModule1Property2
FormModule1Property3
FormModule1Property4
FormModule2
FormModule3
FormModule3Property1
Then as I did previously, I would use a factory to get the proper DAO for dealing with all of these. I would hand it an array of ids representing different modules and properties and it would return all of the DAOs that I need to call getForms(). Which in turn would return all of the forms for that particular bridge.
Some points
This will be for a new module so I dont need to expand on the factory code I provided. I just wanted to show an example of what I have done in the past.
The new module can be associated with: Other Modules (ie globally for any instance of that module data), Other module properties (ie only if the Module instance has a certian value in one of its properties)
I want to make it easy for developers to add associations with other modules and properties easily
Can any one suggest any design patterns or strategy's for achieving this?
If anything is unclear please let me know.
Thank you,
Al
You can use springs Dependency Injection feature. This would help you achieve the flexibility of instantiating the objects using an xml configuration file.
So, my suggestion would be go with the Springs.