Introduction to PM ProgrammingWritten by Larry Salomon Jr. |
IntroductionThe purpose of this column is to provide the readers out there who are not familiar with PM application development the information necessary to satisfy their curiosity, educate themselves, and give them an advantage over the documentation supplied by IBM. Of course, much of this stuff could probably be found in one of the many books out there, but the problem with books in general is that they don't answer the questions you have after you read the book the first time through. I will gladly entertain feedback from the readers about what was "glossed over" or what was detailed well, what tangential topics need to be covered and what superfluous crap should have been removed. This feedback is essential in guaranteeing that you get what you pay for. [grin] It should be said that you must not depend solely on this column to teach you how to develop PM applications; instead, this should be viewed as a supplement to your other information storehouses (books, the network conferences, etc.). Because this column must take a general approach, there will be some topics that you would like to see discussed that really do not belong here. Specific questions can be directed to me via email and I will do my best to answer them in a timely fashion. This MonthThe results are in! You want more "meat" with your potatoes. Heck, I could have figured that out, since anyone can read an online reference to find out what a particular message does. Anyway, we will look at the slider control, how it is used, and dissect a sample application which uses three sliders to display a fillet. What Is a Slider, Anyway?Back in the days when OS/2 1.2 was around, a lot of people found that they were using the scroll bars to display various types of things. However, when these uses were viewed collectively, it was noticed that the things that were being done had similar characteristics:
The slider (shown below) has many components:
Figure 1: A linear slider.
Some DefinitionsThe slider has some concepts associated with it, which you need to know before we may continue.
Slider MessagesI won't bore you with the parameters and such of each message. Instead, I will list each message, briefly describe the message's purpose, and annotate as necessary with any thoughts that come into my head. SLM_ADDDETENT - this message adds a detent to the slider. Since you may add more than one, you must save the identifier returned so that you can send it back to the slider when you send future messages related to this detent. SLM_QUERYDETENTPOS - this message returns the position of a detent relative to the home position of the slider and on which scale the detent resides. There are two problems, however: 1) there is no way that I know of to add a detent to the secondary scale, and 2) the position is returned in pels and not increments of the associated scale. The second item isn't such a bad thing because a detent will usually refer to points of reference that are not integral multiples of the scale unit. The first item seems to point out an oversight, but maybe I'm just missing something. SLM_QUERYSCALETEXT - this message returns the text associated with a specific tick mark on the primary scale. SLM_QUERYSLIDERINFO - this message allows you to query any of four pieces of information about the slider, including the slider arm position and the size of the ribbon strip. For the slider arm position, you may request it either in pels or units along the primary scale. Again, I find it difficult to understand why the secondary scale isn't allowed here. SLM_QUERYTICKPOS - this message returns the (x,y) position of a particular tick mark. SLM_QUERYTICKSIZE - this message returns the length of a particular tick mark. Note that all ticks have a width of 1 pel. SLM_REMOVEDETENT - this message removes a specific detent from the slider. Besides the lack of a scale specifier, the slider lacks a way to remove all detents as well. SLM_SETSCALETEXT - this messages sets the text for a specific tick mark. SLM_SETSLIDERINFO - this message allows you to specify the size and position of the components of the slider. I would have liked to see a way to set the position of the slider buttons. SLM_SETTICKSIZE - this message allows you to set the size of a specific tick mark or all tick marks. Tick marks have an initial size of 0, so you must send this message if you want to see any ticks. About The Sample ApplicationNow that we've taken an admittedly accelerated look at the linear slider, let us now move forward to a sample application. The application doesn't utilitize every feature of the slider control, but it shows enough of the feature set to be useful to us.
The slider sample application What this program does is display a fillet. A fillet is a mathematical construct composed of a curve drawn in relation to the lines connecting three points. (I am not a guru on this topic, so I will stop the discussion here.) The vertical position of any of the three points may be changed via a slider which corresponds to a specific point. Additionally, after the position is changed, a detent is added to indicate the current position of the point along the slider. To graphically demonstrate the effects of moving the points, a call to GpiPolyFillet is made to draw the construct as well. Before we get into the code, a few other points of interest need to be mentioned:
Instead of going through the source code line-for-line, I commented it liberally and will leave it up to you to read through it for comprehension. Believe me when I say that the application is indeed a simple one. Should you have any questions, however, feel free to email me. |