[kepler-dev] Disabling run....

[Edward A Lee]

We have gone to considerable effort to ensure that models can be run
headless (without a graphical display). In order to do this, it is necessary
that actors not have references to anything in Swing or in the UI.

Nonetheless, there are mechanisms. Actors can include attributes
that reference the UI, in which case we filter out these attributes
when we run headless. The attributes that change what happens when
you "look inside," for example, are of this type. So are the attributes
that define the icon (which can be changed at run time, as done routinely
in the wireless domain).

If you look at the package dependencies, you will see that there
are no import statements in ptolemy.actor.lib that reference ptolemy.vergil
or java.awt or javax.swing...  Just having such import statements
means you can't run these actor headless...  However, actors
in ptolemy.actor.lib.gui do have such imports. These cannot be used
in models that run headless (in fact, including one of them in our
test suite creates problems with the nightly build).

So whatever you choose to do about this, I recommend paying attention
to package dependencies. It's easy to add "import" statements.
It's very hard to remove them...

Edward


At 03:56 PM 9/22/2004 -0700, Chad Berkley wrote:
>Hey Rod,
>
>I'm not sure how to disable the run button, but it like the indicator 
>showing that the workflow isn't ready to run should come from the actor 
>that's delaying it.  Maybe the actor should be greyed out and have a 
>little progress meter showing below it.  I think it's important to show 
>the user why the workflow currently isn't executable.  I haven't tried to 
>alter the execution environment (i.e. the run button) from a model, but 
>I'm kind of guessing that there is no interface to do so...maybe one of 
>the ptolemy folks can shed some light on this.
>
>chad
>
>On Sep 22, 2004, at 3:32 PM, Rod Spears wrote:
>
>>When we open a workflow there will be times that data may be loading on a 
>>separate thread and therefore all the actors are not ready to execute. Is 
>>there a way to disable the "Run" button or somehow tell Ptolemy that "we" 
>>all aren't ready yet?
>>
>>Also, where can I find an example of how to make the progress meter move 
>>from within an actor?
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Rod
>>
>>
>>--
>>
>>
>><image.tiff>
>>Rod Spears
>>Biodiversity Research Center
>>University of Kansas
>>1345 Jayhawk Boulevard
>>Lawrence, KS 66045, USA
>>Tel: 785 864-4082, Fax: 785 864-5335
>><jayhawk.gif>
></blockquote></x-html>

------------
Edward A. Lee, Professor
518 Cory Hall, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720
phone: 510-642-0455, fax: 510-642-2739
eal at eecs.Berkeley.EDU, http://ptolemy.eecs.berkeley.edu/~eal