Dotnet plugin bridge: enhancement request.
Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 11:43 am
Team,
I'd like to ask for an enhancement to the Dotnet bridge if it's possible.
First, do the following: open any IA project and drag say, a MessageBox onto the MSIcode window. It pops up a dialog where you can enter the text, caption and so on. You can also select a variable that the result is to be returned to.
In my plugin, I open a Dotnet dialog of my own and I've put two combo boxes on it. One, is fixed and you can select from it but not edit it. The other combo box is blank and that's where my enhancement comes in. Going back to the MessageBox, IA is able to pass all user defined variables into it and you can select one of the items previously defined or you can enter your own variable name. That's more or less how it works on many of the statements anyway. In short, giving back to IA a selected variable.
When I drag my Dotnet plugin onto the MSIcode window, the bridge makes a call to a method called DesignTimeEdit. It takes four arguments: window, state, newState and dispayDialog. That's all okay. What would be nice is if DesignTimeEdit could be given a list of all the variables that IA knows about. If you look at the runtime side of the bridge, there's a method the bridge calls called RunTimeExecute. The second argument is a comma-separated string of all the variables (system and user defined and their values). I can enter my own variable name but it assumes I've already created it before I use my plugin.
That is, I'd like to be able to mimic the same usage as you find in many other statements and other plugin that allows a variable selection or edit.
If that information is made available to RunTimeExecute is it possible to give the same information to DesignTimeEdit as well? I suspect there might be a good reason why it can't but it's equally possible its use might have been overlooked.
Is this something that the team could look at? If it is possible to add it could it be done as soon as you can as I think the value of the bridge and Dotnet plugins would be considerably enhanced with it.
Francesco, you've been involved with the bridge to some extent so you might be able to see what I'm getting at.
Pawel, as the original author of the bridge is there anything you'd like to say about my enhancement?
I'd like to ask for an enhancement to the Dotnet bridge if it's possible.
First, do the following: open any IA project and drag say, a MessageBox onto the MSIcode window. It pops up a dialog where you can enter the text, caption and so on. You can also select a variable that the result is to be returned to.
In my plugin, I open a Dotnet dialog of my own and I've put two combo boxes on it. One, is fixed and you can select from it but not edit it. The other combo box is blank and that's where my enhancement comes in. Going back to the MessageBox, IA is able to pass all user defined variables into it and you can select one of the items previously defined or you can enter your own variable name. That's more or less how it works on many of the statements anyway. In short, giving back to IA a selected variable.
When I drag my Dotnet plugin onto the MSIcode window, the bridge makes a call to a method called DesignTimeEdit. It takes four arguments: window, state, newState and dispayDialog. That's all okay. What would be nice is if DesignTimeEdit could be given a list of all the variables that IA knows about. If you look at the runtime side of the bridge, there's a method the bridge calls called RunTimeExecute. The second argument is a comma-separated string of all the variables (system and user defined and their values). I can enter my own variable name but it assumes I've already created it before I use my plugin.
That is, I'd like to be able to mimic the same usage as you find in many other statements and other plugin that allows a variable selection or edit.
If that information is made available to RunTimeExecute is it possible to give the same information to DesignTimeEdit as well? I suspect there might be a good reason why it can't but it's equally possible its use might have been overlooked.
Is this something that the team could look at? If it is possible to add it could it be done as soon as you can as I think the value of the bridge and Dotnet plugins would be considerably enhanced with it.
Francesco, you've been involved with the bridge to some extent so you might be able to see what I'm getting at.
Pawel, as the original author of the bridge is there anything you'd like to say about my enhancement?