Re: Passing variables up to the GUI

[Daniel J Sebald]

On 04/12/2013 07:43 PM, John Donoghue wrote:
> Just a general question/observation/what will it take since I havent dug
> much into the depth of the octave engine.
>
> Currently, in GUI land, the workspace-model is receiving notification of
> variables in scope via the set_workspace slot.
> The variables are in string/stringlist format by this point, and are
> pretty much just input as is to the model.
>
> If we want to do things like the ability of specifying additional
> columns to display (min, max, avg etc??), the lower level will have to
> provide additional strings that are always being sent up to the GUI with
> the values as strings, unless we change how it is currently doing it
>
> So how hard would it be (or whats the best/safest way) of being able to
> provide the variables up to the GUI where a amount of manipulation can
> be done?
>
> I think it will be required if we want to be able to edit/display the
> content of variables, change how the GUI displays (without having to
> modify the engine each time).

This is related to the discussion from week ago.  One of the things 
about octave is that it has all sorts of commands already providing 
information.  If there were some way to provide a command to octave and 
get the result, then the GUI could be inquiring such information.

For example, I see John just added a new feature for renaming variables 
in the workspace from the GUI workspace window.  That is a nice feature. 
 However, it's done via callback, when it could be done with a command

"z = x; clear x;"

for example.

Dan