Planning the Overall Reactor Process

Planning the Overall Reactor Process

Storing Information Within the Reactor Objects

 

AutoLISP Tutorial > Putting It All Together > Planning the Overall Reactor Process > 

Reacting to More User-Invoked Commands

When writing a reactor-based application, you need to handle any command that affects your objects in a significant way. One of your program design activities should be to review all possible AutoCAD editing commands and determine how your application should respond to each one. The format of the reactor-trace sheet shown near the end of Lesson 6 is very good for this purpose. Invoke the commands you expect your user to use, and write down the kind of behavior with which your application should respond. Other actions to plan for include

• Determine what to do when users issue UNDO and REDO commands.
• Determine what to do when users issue the OOPS command after erasing entities linked with reactors.

To prevent a very complex subject from becoming very, very complex, the tutorial does not try to cover all the possibilities that should be covered, and the functionality within this lesson is kept to an absolute minimum.

Even though you won't be building in the complete functionality for these extra commands, examine what a few additional editing functions would require you to do:

• If users stretch a polyline boundary (using the STRETCH command) several things should happen. It could be stretched in any direction, not just on the major or minor axis, so the boundary may end up in a very odd shape. In addition, you need to take into consideration how many vertices have been stretched. A situation where only one vertex is stretched will result in a polyline quite different from one in which two vertices are moved. In any case, the tiles must be erased and new positions recalculated once you determine the adjustments needed to the boundary.
• If users move a polyline boundary, all the tiles should be erased, then redrawn in the new location. This is a fairly simple operation, because the polyline boundary did not change its size or shape.
• If users scale a polyline boundary, you need to make a decision. Should the tiles be scaled up as well, so that the path contains the same number of tiles? Or, should the tile size remain the same and the application add or remove tiles, depending on whether the polyline was scaled up or down?
• If users rotate a polyline boundary, all the tiles should be erased, then redrawn in the new orientation.

To begin, though, just plan for the following:

• Warn the user upon command-start that the selected edit command (such as stretch, move, or rotate) will have detrimental effects on a garden path.
• If the user proceeds, erase the tiles and do not redraw them.
• Remove the reactors from the path outline.