Allow adding existing folders

[mattfelsen]

Small change here, but maybe a useful one? I have different classes that create a folder containing their parameters, and implement a ofxDatGuiFolder* getGuiFolder(). From ofApp, which manages the gui, I call this and build a panel which has controls for all my different classes under collapsible folders. This is sort of a stop-gap fix until multiple panels snapping together exists (which is probably a more legit approach), but does the job for me and might be useful to others. 👍 ?

[braitsch]

Hi, I would caution against passing raw pointers around now that shared_ptrs & unique_ptrs exist in cpp11. Eventually all gui->add methods will generate a unique_ptr for every component they construct or possibly a shared_ptr if there is a common enough use case for components to be shared across guis.

Also just curious, how is this a stop-gap fix for multiple panels snapping together?

[mattfelsen]

Agreed about smart pointers. I just went with a raw pointer since they're used throughout the addon and I just went with the flow. Not sure how unique_ptr would work here...if I did gui->addSlider() and stored the result so I could later call slider->getValue() on it, then I would need a copy and the ofxDatGui* instance would need a copy, so all the components would have to be shared_ptrs I would think?

Regarding the snapping...I have a class with a number of parameters that I want to control via a gui. I'd like to be able to have each instance make a panel, and have all the panels snap together so they're easily moved as a unit. What I'm doing instead is putting all the params into a folder accessible via a getter, and adding that folder to a single main panel which I can then move as a single unit, and can expand/collapse the various folders for the various instances. Hopefully that makes sense...if not I can take a screenshot when I'm back at the office tomorrow.

[braitsch]

Yep, they'd likely need to be shared_ptrs as per the points you mention but let's table a refactor for now until other features in the roadmap are addressed.

Snapping panels together & moving them as a single unit has come up on the forums and it's something I eventually plan to address for both vertical and horizontal layouts. I just need to think a bit more about how I want to implement this as it quickly gets complicated when you take into account dynamic component resizing, folders expanding and the application of themes.