Re: heatbugs suggestion

[Rick Riolo]

Hi Glen,
Yes, I could see this as some kind of object editor.
If I understand it correctly, now probes can serve double
duty as a measuring device and as an changing device.
Maybe a subclass of probes could be the "change" interface.
Or maybe its on a different class branch.
I don't have an opinion on how its implemented, really.

My main point goes beyond heatbugs...heatbugs is just
an example of where it would be useful.
I have found general data entry interfaces to be most  
convenient if I (the programmer) can define special
methods to process the incoming data and then
tell the interface "when a user enters data for
this, execute this method", no matter how they enter data. 
Then that user-defined method can do error checking,
to convert data (eg from the user entering 
some string name for the value to an internal enum
value), to pass the value from this variable to
other objects (if they exist), and so on.

In the heatbugs context, this could be used
to do what I mentioned, i.e., pass a parameter
from the Model to all the bugs that use it
(should one want to do that).
But it also could be used in heatbugs for error
checking, e.g., to make sure the entered
temperatures, diffusion rates, etc are all
within the bounds the model expects.  And if they are
not, it can be caught right when the user
presses <Enter>, and a message can be printed, etc.

Going farther:  I think probes already do
some general error checking, i.e., the data
type has to be right (You can't enter xxx for
a diffuseConstant.)  But it would be nice if
the user could also specify other "standard" checks
to be done, without having to write anything
special, e.g., to specify ranges, or lists
of valid values.   General input objects that
provide those services save a lot of work.

- r

ps I thought I was up early, but you are 2 hours earlier!

Rick Riolo                       address@hidden
Program for Study of Complex Systems (PSCS)
1061 Randall Lab     University of Michigan
Ann Arbor MI 48109-1120
http://pscs.physics.lsa.umich.edu/PEOPLE/rlr-home.html

On Fri, 21 Feb 1997, glen e. p. ropella wrote:

> Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 06:01:30 -0700
> From: glen e. p. ropella <address@hidden>
> To: address@hidden
> Subject: heatbugs minor omissions?; suggestion
> 
> 
> "rlr" == Rick Riolo <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> [...]
> rlr> A suggestion for future versions of heatbugs:
> 
> rlr> Change it in some way so that at least some of the parameters can
> rlr> have an effect when changed during a run, via the GUI, e.g., the
> rlr> randomMoveProbability, the evaporationRate and the
> rlr> diffuseConstant.
> 
> rlr> In the short term, maybe there could be a method tied to a button
> rlr> that says "Apply Changes" which passes the changed values along
> rlr> to the appropriate objects.
> 
> rlr> One longer term solution to that problem might be to make it
> rlr> possible to assign a "update" method to variable probes, so that
> rlr> if one is assigned, when <Return> is pressed to set a variable,
> rlr> that method gets executed.  The user could then define it to do
> rlr> error checking, or to pass values along to other objects.
> 
> rlr> Or maybe there are other better ways to achieve this.
> 
> Thanks for the suggestions, Rick.  Barry, JJ, and now you have 
> suggested that heatbugs needs a revamp.  I planned on doing it.
> What you seem to be implying is the same type of User Interface
> object Barry uses in SCL.  It's not really a modelSwarm probe,
> but more of a space/agent editor.  I don't think this is a bad
> idea.  The model-wide changes could be handled this way, as well.
> 
> glen
> 
>