JPH08166874A - Structuring method for gui - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To provide a difference programming function and facilitate software development. CONSTITUTION: The object management of a GUI server is enabled to have an object-oriented managing function and constitute a composite class in which other component classes are taken. To constitute the composite class, the class name and relative position of a component class to be taken in are held at a class attribute part and a list of component object names is held at an instance attribute part. For the construction and destruction of the composite object, the constructor and destructor of an instance method are provided with functions for automatically constructing and destructing a component object respectively, in the case of structuring the object-oriented GUI with a GUI structuring tool.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method of constructing a graphical user interface (GUI) in computer software.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A conventional method of this type includes a window frame,
There is a tool that prepares GUI parts such as buttons and text boxes as a class and interactively operates in a visual environment to construct a GUI.

Using such a tool, a software developer creates a window frame object which is an instance of the window frame class, and arranges instance objects of component classes such as buttons therein to construct a GUI. be able to.

[0004]

When GUI construction is performed using a conventional GUI construction tool, the generated GUI object is often a compound object composed of a plurality of component objects.

It is inconvenient to manage such a composite object as a set of individual parts, and the advantage of object orientation that differential programming using inheritance can be performed cannot be fully utilized.

An object of the present invention is to provide a GUI construction method having a differential programming function and facilitating software development.

[0007]

According to the present invention, in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, in object-oriented GUI construction using a GUI construction tool, the object management of the GUI server inherits classes and classes. The derived class and the instance that generates the class or the derived class as a type are managed in a file, and to create the instance, create a copy of the instance attributes and instance methods described in the class or the derived class, and create an object. On the other hand, when a message requesting activation of a method is given, an object-oriented management function of searching a method described in a file from the object to a parent class is provided, and the GUI server is
In order to be able to handle a composite class that incorporates other component classes into the class, the following processing is performed: (1) The class name and relative position list of component classes are stored in the class attribute part.

(2) A field for holding a list of component object names is provided in the instance attribute part.

(3) An instance of the component class is generated in the constructor of the instance method, and the instance name is set in the component object name list of the instance attribute part to generate the component object.

(4) The destructor of the instance method causes the component object to disappear from the component object name list in the instance attribute section and causes the component object to disappear.

It is characterized in that

[0012]

[Operation] The class name and relative position of the part class to be loaded in the class attribute part are retained, and the list of part object names is held in the instance attribute part. To create and delete a complex object, the instance method constructor and destructor automatically By providing the functions of creating and erasing, it is possible to easily compose a composite class.

[0013]

[Embodiment] In the GUI construction method of this embodiment, a GUI server is provided with a function of handling a composite object composed of a plurality of classes. Therefore, the GUI server object management method is as follows.

(1) FIG. 1 shows a class and an example of instance generation from the class.

(1A) class includes a class name, attributes,
Save the method in text format to a file.

The attributes include class attributes common to the classes,
Provide instance attributes for each instance. Two types of methods are provided: a class method common to classes and an instance method for each instance.

In the figure, the class name "PushButto"
The GUI component of "n" and the class data example of a text format are shown.

(1B) An instance is created with a class as a type. In this generation, the instance name and the instance attribute described in the class and a copy of the instance method are saved in a text format.

These instance attributes and instance methods can be freely changed later.

In the figure, the instance name "aPushB
A GUI component of "utton" and instance data in text format are shown.

(2) FIG. 2 shows a derived class and an example of generating an instance from the derived class.

(2A) Class can be inherited.
In this case, the derived class stores only the difference from the parent class in text format.

In the figure, the attribute "color" is added to the derived class name "ColoredPushButton" generated by inheritance.

(2B) An instance of the derived class is generated with the derived class as a type. In this generation, a copy of the instance name and instance method and instance method described in the ancestral class is saved in text format.

These instance attributes and instance methods can be freely changed later.

In the figure, the class name "PushButto"
An example is shown in which a copy of the instance attribute and instance method of "n" is saved.

As described above, in the object management by the GUI server, a class, a derived class which is inherited from the class and an instance which is generated as a class or a derived class as a type are managed by a file, and the instance is generated. Creates a copy of the instance attributes and instance methods described in the class or derived class.

When a message requesting the activation of a method is given to this object, the GUI server searches the method described in the file of the object, and if the method is not found there, the object is generated. The method described in the file of the specified class is searched, and if it is not found there, the method described in the file of the parent class is further searched.

By extending the above mechanism as follows, a composite object can be handled.

(3) The composite class is constructed by incorporating other component classes into one class. At this time, it is configured according to the following rules.

(3A) A list of class names and relative positions of component classes to be stored in the class attribute part of the file is held.

(3B) A field for holding a list of component object names to be taken into the instance attribute part is provided.

(3C) The following operation is added to the constructor of the instance method so that when the composite object is generated, the part object is also generated.

A. Generate and place an instance of the part class specified in the class attribute part.

B. Set the generated instance name in the part object name list in the instance attribute part.

(3D) The following operation is added to the destructor of the instance method so that when the composite object disappears, the part object also disappears.

A. Identify the component object from the component object name list in the instance attribute section and delete it.

FIG. 3 shows a GUI component and file contents as an example of generation of a composite class in which the class "PushButton" is combined with the class "Window".

By providing such a mechanism in the GUI server, it is possible to handle the complex objects and to support the function of applying inheritance to them.

[0040]

As described above, according to the present invention, the GUI
The server has an object-oriented management function, and since it can handle complex objects, it has the following effects.

(1) The code amount of a program can be reduced by differential programming by inheriting classes of objects.

(2) Since a highly functional object having operations and data is arranged as a GUI part, the load on the application which is the client is reduced, and the code amount of the client can be reduced.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an example of generating classes and instances according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an example of generating a derived class and an instance in one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an example of generating a composite class according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In object-oriented GUI construction using a GUI construction tool, object management of a GUI server generates a class, a derived class that is inherited from the class, and a class or a derived class as a type. The instance and the file are managed. To create the instance, make a copy of the instance attribute and instance method described in the class or the derived class, and when a message requesting the activation of the method is given to the object, the object is created. To a parent class are provided with an object-oriented management function for searching a method described in a file, and the GUI server performs the following processing in order to handle a composite class that incorporates another component class into the class. , (1) In the class attribute part, the part class Holds a list of ras names and relative positions. (2) A field for holding a list of component object names is provided in the instance attribute part. (3) An instance of the part class is created in the constructor of the instance method, and the instance name is set in the part object name list of the instance attribute part to create the part object. (4) The destructor of the instance method causes the component object to disappear from the component object name list in the instance attribute part and causes the component object to disappear. A method for constructing a GUI characterized by the following.