Re: Writing about probeDisplays: what do you think?

[glen e. p. ropella]

At 11:45 AM 5/27/99 -0500, you wrote:
>matter) has seen a probe display.  (Note: in some swarm material, these
>are called "probe maps", I don't know why/how that is different from
>probe display.)

A map is a kind of collection.  A probeMap is a map of probes.
Probes are objects just like any other.  The display "displays"
a probeMap; so it would be more appropriate to call them 
probeMap displays rather than probe displays.  Basically,
each entry in a probe display is a probe.

>Most importantly, the object "probeDisplayManager" is not explicitly
>created by the user.  Rather, it appears automatically in any Swarm
>program that includes simtoolsgui.h.  (question: is that right?  I see
>in simtoolsgui.m that the probeDisplayManager creation code exists, but
>what triggers the actual creation of the object?) 

It exists in any code that calls initSwarm() with the gui mode
flag set to true.

>created from the Swarm class EmptyProbeMap. (It might have been better
>to call that one the EmptyProbeDisplay object, I think, but you can't go
>back in time....).

See above about the diff between a probemap and a probedisplay.

And don't forget the shortcut method for designing a custom
probemap.

e.g.
------------------------
  probeMap = [CustomProbeMap create: aZone forClass: [self class]
                             withIdentifiers: "membership",
                             "factValue", "coercionValue", 
                             "socialPressureValue",":",
                             "setMembershipTo:", NULL];
  [probeLibrary setProbeMap: probeMap For: [self class]];
-------------------------

glen

--
glen e. p. ropella                =><=          Hail Eris!
Home: http://www.trail.com/~gepr/home.html  (505) 424-0448
Work: http://www.swarm.com                  (505) 995-0818  

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