Hi fellow Pharo folks, TL;DR: The only apparent way to open a standalone presenter on a user-specified model, SpPresenter>>on:, has a comment suggesting it will be deprecated. As a follow-up to my previous question in case someone DuckDuckGoes it in the future, it seems that adding self modelChanged to SpPresenterWithModel>>setAnnouncingObject: breaks the Spec2 demos. So, I backed my fix out of my image. This has several implications: - To actually change an SpPresenterWithModel's model, one must send model: and then modelChanged. This seems to break encapsulation. - The Spec2 demos seem to rely on modelChanged not arriving before the UI opens. This seems fragile, and reduces the utility of using the demos as examples for writing non-demo code. - Since I can't send modelChanged from model:, I must apparently use SpPresenter>>on: to open a standalone instance of my subclass of SpPresenterWithModel on a model I supply (e.g. (BLFunctionPresenter on: aModel) openWithSpec). I was avoiding this because unfortunately, the comment foreshadows deprecation but does not explain what to use instead. I do not understand how a subclass of SpPresenterWithModel can be composable after this deprecation. So, I have a solution for now, but I am still looking for the supported way to open a standalone presenter on a user-specified model. Bren
On Feb 8, 2020, at 3:22 PM, Bren <asparagi@hhhh.org> wrote:
Hi Pharo friends,
TL;DR: How should one open a presenter on a user-specified model? Is SpPresenterWithModel>>setAnnouncingObject: missing a call to modelChanged?
The long version: I am trying to write a UI for my threat modeling tool using Spec in Pharo 8. I had trouble getting my first presenter to show me my model. My current VERY WIP tiny code is available from git@github.com:octotrike/groundhog.git, on branch pharo-sp-presenter-question.
I wanted to do something like this (paraphrased from the class comment for my BLFunctionPresenter class):
BLFunctionPresenter new model: aModel; openWithSpec
Unfortunately, the UI continued to show the default announcingObject (nil), even though announcingObject had changed as expected.
The examples I found showed either - a containing presenter getting an event, changing instance variables on a presenter it contains, and sending modelChanged, or - a presenter hard coded to show a model that is globally accessible.
In the end, I added self modelChanged to the end of SpPresenterWithModel>>setAnnouncingObject:. It seemed like this method changed announcingObject and registered this presenter to receive modelChanged every time changes to the announcingObject occurred. However, in cases like the one I am describing, the change is replacement of the entire announcingObject, so no announcingObject sends modelChanged.
Was/is this a bug in Spec? Or is there something else I should be doing to open a Spec UI on a model that is neither global nor specified by a parent presenter?
Bren