gvSIG blog

In the previous article, “Names of icons, menus and actions in gvSIG 2.0 II: aplying in gvSIG.“, we saw how to define an action and how to use it in menus and buttons in the application. We named the action, the icon, elected an “action-command” and positioned it. Now well, when electing  this things it’s not in a random way, we follow some rules we have to when doing it. First is that every action have got to be in an entry in main menus in gvSIG. It should not have an action in a button or contextual menu not represented in menus. In our example, we situated the action in menu entry:

• Tools
  • Symbology
    • Import point symbols

The general rule to name an action is the complete route in menus, in English, separating menus entries by “–“, replacing spaces by “–” and eliminating others pointing symbols that could exist. Also the name of action would be “tools-symbology-import-point-symbols“. It could happen the action name would conflict with other action, for example, menu entry:

• Selection
  • Select all

It would  be used to select all lines of a table, or all elements in map or geometries  in active layer in the view. We’d have  three distinct actions, and what we would do would be add a suffix in the name’s end of the action indicating about what object is applied the action. So we’d have:

• selection-select-all-table
• selection-select-all-layout
• selection-select-all-layer

Following these little considerations we’ll name our action, and so we have the name, we’ll name the remaining actions elements.

Now we elect  the name used to the “action-command“. As general rule, we’’ll use same name of the action.

The  next we’ll have to select would be the name of icon. We’ll follow three simple rules:

• If action is contemplated in actions recognized within Tango Desktop Project, of freedesktop.org will be used icon name proposed by it.
• If a suffix had not been added to the action, the name of the action will be used.
• If a suffix had been added to the action, the name of the action will be used, eliminating the suffix.

Finally, we have to assign a position to our action. In version 2 of gvSIG is stablished the following convention to stablish the positions of action:

AAABBBCCCD

Where:

• AAA, represents first level menu inside gvSIG menu. There are stablished the following values:
  • 10 to menu File
  • 20 to menu Edit
  • 30 to menu Select
  • 40 to menu Show
  • 50 to menu Table
  • 60 to menu Layer
  • 65 to menu View
  • 70 to menu Map
  • 90 to menu Tools
  • 96 to menu Window
  • 99 to menu Help
• BBB, three digits filled of zeros in left represented by position  inside menu AAA. In case of not proceeding, we could indicate “000″.
• CCC, in case entry in BBB is a submenu, this indicates position inside this submenu. It also is filled of zeros in left, and in case it doesn’t proceed we indicate “000″.
• D, in case entry in CCC be a submenu, this indicates position inside this submenu, in case it don’t proceed we indicate “0″.

With these values we could compose the position’s value, that will be used to situate an action related to others always when showed to user.

In case of the example the position indicated is “900400200″:

• 90, menu “Tools“
  • 040, submenu “Symbology“
    • 020, position inside menu symbology of entry “Import point symbols“
      • 0, don’t proceeding this way leaving a zero.

In gvSIG are included several tools that allow us to see a list of actions or menu entries installed in a moment. We could follow menu:

• Tools
  • Devel
    • Show menu information

To get a list of menu entries, where we could see its position to get an idea where we have to put ours and what position‘s number we have to assign it.

In the same menu Development, we have an option “Show action information” that will show us a list of all registered actions in the app ordered by plugin that supports it.

It’s possible to get a list of action and menu entries of the app following menu “Tools->development->Show actions information”

Nuevamente compartimos la noticia de un curso realizado recientemente, esta vez en el Instituto de Formación Docente “Juan Pedro Tapié” de San Ramón, Canelones (Uruguay) y organizado por el propio IFD San Ramón y apoyado por SNAP (DINAMA-MVOTMA) y la Dirección Nacional de Topografía (MTOP).

Fue en modalidad e-learning a través de la plataforma Edmodo, con una duración de dos meses y evaluación final, y moderado por tres turores: Prof. Gabriel Calixto y Prof. Genoveva Laurente, con apoyo de Mtra. Bettina Delgado. El frío no fue impedimento para el éxito del mismo. ¡Felicitaciones!

Some days ago we started a little series of articles related to the names of the icons, menus and actions with the article: Names of icons, menus and actions on gvSIG 2.0 (I). We’re going to continue telling some other things that can be interesting for the developers.

When we create a plugin for gvSIG, it’s usually that we want to add some option to the menus, or some button to the button bar of the application. To do this we have to indicate it in the config.xml file, the same that we did it in the previous versions of gvSIG. Nevertheless a new concept has been introduced in the 2.x version. This is the action.

An action, as its name indicates, identify an action that the user can make on gvSIG, without being joined to a menu or a button of the toolbar. The actions can be run or linked from any part of gvSIG, we only have to know its name. The action has a series of associated data:

• A name that identifies it in an only way in all the actions registered in the application.
• A label, that can be used to present this, for example in a button or in a contextual menu.
• A tip, with a short description about the tasks made by the action, to present it in buttons or menus.
• An icon that represents it, to be used for example in buttons.
• A keyboard accelerator associated to the action for the case that it’s needed to.
• An absolute position regarding to the other actions.
• A code associated to this, to calculate when the action must be visible or enable or what is the code associated to the action running.

Having this centralized information associated to an action allows us to have them in a homogeneous way, and it’s not important where they do it from. They always can have the same label, or the same icon, or the same accelerator, or the same position regarding to other actions.

At this way, if we want to present the same action in a menu and a button at the buttons bar we only will have to associate the action to the menu or the bar, and add the rest of the options that they need and that aren’t defined at the action.

The class that represents the action can’t be overwritten by code. It’s a class offered by andami as an own service, and the developer can use it but not overload it… then… How is the associated code provided for an action?

To contribute with the code associated to an action it’s used the extensions mechanism that gvSIG included in the previous versions. An action has:

• A plugin that contains it.
• A Iextension that provides its logic.
• An action-command, to identify the action of the extension.

<action 
   name="tools-symbology-import-point-symbols" 
   label="_import_point_symbols"
   tooltip="_import_images_from_folder_as_point_symbols" 
   action-command="tools-symbology-import-point-symbols"
   icon="tools-symbology-import-point-symbols" 
   position="900400200" 
   accelerator="" 
/>

<menu
     name="tools-symbology-import-point-symbols" 
     text="tools/Symbology/Import_point_symbols"
/>

<tool-bar name="symbology" position="10">
  <action-tool name="tools-symbology-import-point-symbols" />
</tool-bar>

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<plugin-config>
  <libraries library-dir="lib" />
  <depends plugin-name="org.gvsig.app" />
  <resourceBundle name="text" />
  <extensions>
    <extension
      class-name="org.gvsig.symbology.app.importsymbols.ImportSymbolsExtension"
      description="Import images from a folder as point symbols" 
      active="true">

      <action 
         name="tools-symbology-import-point-symbols" 
         label="_import_point_symbols"
         tooltip="_import_images_from_folder_as_point_symbols" 
         action-command="tools-symbology-import-point-symbols"
         icon="tools-symbology-import-point-symbols" 
         position="900400200" 
         accelerator="" 
      />
      <menu
           name="tools-symbology-import-point-symbols" 
           text="tools/Symbology/Import_point_symbols"
            />
    </extension>
  </extensions>
</plugin-config>