"NEW" C++ Technique for Dynamic Tooltips

[Guest Patrick_Waugh]

[h3]The Old Way[/h3]After actually having truely learned C++, I've been slowly looking more deeply at the many little hints the gauges.h offers us on how to really do things.When making on/off switches, I often want a dynamic tooltip like "Switch: ON".So, I might do this:[PRE]static PCSTRINGZ FSAPI GetState(FLOAT64 number, ID id, PCSTRINGZ string, MODULE_VAR *source_var, PGAUGEHDR gauge){ if (source_var->var_value.n) { return "Starter: ON"; } else { return "Starter: OFF"; }}MOUSE_TOOLTIP_ARGS (Switch_Args) MOUSE_TOOLTIP_ARG(GENERAL_ENGINE1_STARTER, 1, NULL, NULL, value_table, NULL, NULL, GetState)MOUSE_TOOLTIP_ARGS_ENDMOUSE_BEGIN(Switch_rect, HELP_NONE, 0, 0) MOUSE_TOOLTIP_TEXT_STRING ("Switch: %1!s!", Switch_Args) MOUSE_CHILD_FUNCT(10, 10, 21, 21, CURSOR_GRAB, MOUSE_LEFTSINGLE | MOUSE_LEFTRELEASE, Switch_mcb)MOUSE_ENDGAUGE_HEADER_FS700(GAUGE_W, Switch_gauge_name, &switch_list, switch_rect, Switch_cb, 0, 0, 0);[/PRE]You'll note that above I've made GetState return a string, and therefore have made it the STRING_CALLBACK parameter in the MOUSE_TOOLTIP_ARG macro.However, I have always been not quiet happy with it as I am forced to sort of convert the FLOAT64 to a Boolean.[br][h3]And now for something completely different...[/h3]While looking more closely at the MOUSE_TOOLTIP_ARG macro I became curious about the STRING_TABLE parameter. How was this used?The relavent portion of the macro substitution is this: (STRING_TABLE), sizeof(STRING_TABLE)/sizeof(MOUSE_ARG_STRING_MAP),and made me realize that it was a user defined table (array) of MOUSE_ARG_STRING_MAPs!Just above the macro in gauges.h you'll see:[PRE] typedef struct { SINT32 source; PSTRINGZ value; } MOUSE_ARG_STRING_MAP;[/PRE]and tells us that an "entry" is a number that identifies a string. It is defined very much like the FAILURE_RECORD like so:[PRE] MOUSE_ARG_STRING_MAP value_table[] = { { 0, "OFF" }, { 1, "ON" } };[/PRE]My table has only two entries, 0="OFF", 1="ON".GetState can now just return a FLOAT64 like this:[PRE] static FLOAT64 FSAPI GetState(FLOAT64 number, ID id, PCSTRINGZ string, MODULE_VAR *source_var, PGAUGEHDR gauge) { return source_var->var_value.n; }[/PRE]And you then add the STRING_TABLE to the macro and put GetState back in the NUMERIC_CALLBACK parameter like so: MOUSE_TOOLTIP_ARG(GENERAL_ENGINE1_STARTER, 1, NULL, NULL, value_table, GetState, NULL, NULL)and voila! The translation is done by the STRING_TABLE!!!! :-beerchug

[badderjet 181]

Hi... looking good, thanks a ton! :-hahHey regarding the failure records, do you know a way to determine something has actually failed...!? I can't seem to retrieve e. g. if NAV1 or NAV2 has failed. There are PP_... TokenVars but they seem to differ from what can be failed in the Failure Dialog of FS.Thanks,Etienne :-wave