Updownquark
commented
12 years ago I have implemented this, but it's very ugly--mostly because you can't specify custom types in annotations, so that section about attributes={LayoutConstants.width... becomes attrs={@NeededAttr(name="width", type=MuisAttrType.SIZE)... and it's even more onerous for enum and arbitrary types. I might think about a compound listener class that would allow this stuff to be put together more cleanly and more customizably. I may or may not back out the stuff I've already done once there's a cleaner solution.
(Changed from Annotation for attributes & styles)
It would ease development of new widgets, layouts, textures etc. if there were an annotation on types that would instruct a MUIS element to accept/require an attribute and have an option of an action to take when the attribute value changes. Also need an annotation that instructs an element to repaint or take an arbitrary action when a style attribute changes.
A good example would be with layouts. Right now, if a layout requires or can use certain attributes (e.g. orientation on the parent; x, y, width, height on the children) to do its job, it has to make all the calls to accept/require those attributes as well as add a listener for all those attributes to call the container's doLayout method. Instead, the layout class could be tagged with something like
When the given layout was set as an attribute on an element, the MuisTypeInstanceAttribute or some other system would check the type hierarchy (at least the class and all its super classes, maybe interfaces as well) for these annotations and add the listeners. If the attribute value changed, those accepted/required attributes would be reverted and the listeners removed automatically somehow.
This could really decrease the amount of boilerplate code required to create new MUIS classes. Have to figure out how to do this elegantly.