questions on how to create a form

[xingxing]

can someone teach me how to create a form used to gather infomation entered by a user?

I need to do it in this way. If I pressed a key such as 'p', the animation would be paused. Then the form comes up. After the form is filled in, I press a 'submit' button to pass them to somewhere.

I already tried to use vizinfo and vizmenu. but they can just show a list , not a real form like what we did in the Microsoft Office.

Thanks a lot

[farshizzo]

You can try using the undocumented vizdlg module for displaying forms. It allows more advanced form layouts and dialog like components. Here is sample code that creates a custom dialog/form and displays it when the 'p' key is pressed:

import viz
viz.go()

import vizdlg

class MyForm(vizdlg.Dialog):

	def __init__(self,**kw):
		
		#Initialize base class
		vizdlg.Dialog.__init__(self,**kw)
		
		#Add row of checkboxes
		row = vizdlg.Panel(layout=vizdlg.LAYOUT_HORZ_BOTTOM,border=False,background=False,margin=0)
		row.addItem(viz.addText('Checkboxes'))
		self.check1 = row.addItem(viz.addCheckbox())
		self.check2 = row.addItem(viz.addCheckbox())
		self.check3 = row.addItem(viz.addCheckbox())
		
		#Add row to dialog content section
		self.content.addItem(row)
	
		#Add a subgroup containing slider/textbox
		group = vizdlg.Panel()
		
		#Add row for slider to subgroup
		row = vizdlg.Panel(layout=vizdlg.LAYOUT_HORZ_BOTTOM,border=False,background=False,margin=0)
		row.addItem(viz.addText('Slider'))
		self.slider = row.addItem(viz.addSlider())
		group.addItem(row)
		
		#Add row for textbox to subgroup
		row = vizdlg.Panel(layout=vizdlg.LAYOUT_HORZ_BOTTOM,border=False,background=False,margin=0)
		row.addItem(viz.addText('Textbox'))
		self.textbox = row.addItem(viz.addTextbox())
		group.addItem(row)
		
		#Add group to dialog content section
		self.content.addItem(group)

		#Hide cancel button
		self.cancel.visible(0)
		
		#Rename accept button to 'submit'
		self.accept.message('Submit')
		
import viztask

def FormTask():

	#Create input form
	form = MyForm(title='Form title')

	#Link form to center of screen
	viz.link(viz.MainWindow.CenterCenter,form)

	while True:
		
		#Wait for 'p' key to be pressed
		yield viztask.waitKeyDown('p')
		
		#TODO: Pause simulation
		
		#Display form
		yield form.show()
		
		if form.accepted:
			#User pressed 'Submit', process data
			print 'Checkboxes:',form.check1.get(),form.check2.get(),form.check3.get()
			print 'Slider:',form.slider.get()
			print 'Textbox:',form.textbox.get()
		
		#TODO: Resume simulation
		
	#Remove form when completely finished with it
	form.remove()
	
viztask.schedule( FormTask() )

[xingxing]

Wow.....many thanks. I really appreciate it. This is exactly what I considered. If the vizard could create many complex models, there should be some ways to make tables. However, could you plz tell me how I can get the specific use of this module? I just tried your sample code and part of my purpose already was achieved. As you mentioned , something more advanced is allowed. How can I do it? Since this module is not documented , it's really hard to know its exact usage which is vital to me.

Regards

[farshizzo]

You will need to be more specific about what you are trying to accomplish. Do you have a screenshot of a form you would like to mimic?

[xingxing]

I finally got a place to upload the form in jpg format. This is basically what I wanna do. In addition , as the example provided previously, I also need the animation paused when I presss the "P" key. Is there an easy way to do this?
I really need this "pause" action. Thanks for help.

[farshizzo]

What kind of animation are you talking about? (vizact animation, avatar animation, etc..)

[xingxing]

Hi, my work is about avatar animation.

[farshizzo]

You can use the following command to pause an avatar:

avatar.speed(0)

To resume the avatar animation, use the following code:

avatar.speed(1)

[vizmaster]

How would I rewrite this so that the vizdlg is not in a yield statement. I try calling form.show() directly and nothing is displayed. I want to gather some user information then loop on a set of inputs. I would like to use vizdlg for the control I have over the form.

[farshizzo]

The show method just sets the dialog visible, waits for either the accept or cancel button to be pressed, then hides the dialog. If you do not want to use a task, then you can manually perform these steps. Here is the code for the show command:

def show(self):
	"""Create task that displays dialog"""
	
	#Show dialog
	self.visible(1)
		
	#Yield until accept or cancel button is released
	d = viz.Data()
	yield viztask.waitButtonUp([self.accept,self.cancel],d)
		
	#Save whether the dialog was accepted
	self.accepted = d.button is self.accept
		
	#Hide dialog
	self.visible(0)

[vizmaster]

When I add the yield statement I lose visibility of the form. I don't manually change the visibility. What gives?

[farshizzo]

You should not be using yield statements if you are not using tasks. Here is a sample script that displays a dialog without using tasks. Use the spacebar to toggle the visibility of the dialog.

import viz
import vizdlg
viz.go()

#Create empty dialog
dlg = vizdlg.Dialog(title='Dialog title')

#Link dialog to center of window
viz.link(viz.CenterCenter,dlg)

#Toggle dialog visibility when spacebar is pressed
vizact.onkeydown(' ',dlg.visible,viz.TOGGLE)

viz.add('gallery.ive')

[vizmaster]

Thanks, This is what I ended up with, but I don't want to display the gallery until I hit accept. I want to wait for the dialog to be done. Say the dialog asks for the user to make a button choice then accept before the gallery is displayed.


import viz
import vizdlg
viz.go()

#Create empty dialog
dlg = vizdlg.Dialog(title='Dialog title')

#Link dialog to center of window
viz.link(viz.CenterCenter,dlg)

#Toggle dialog visibility when spacebar is pressed
vizact.onkeydown(' ',dlg.visible,viz.TOGGLE)
# Look for the Accept button to be pressed.
vizact.onbuttondown(dlg.accept,dlg.visible,viz.TOG GLE)
viz.add('gallery.ive')

[farshizzo]

Is there a specific reason you don't want to use tasks? They are made for these type of cases where you want a linear flow of operations. Either way, here is how you would handle this without tasks. The code sets up a callback for the accept button and calls a function when it is clicked.

import viz
import vizdlg
viz.go()

#Create empty dialog
dlg = vizdlg.Dialog(title='Dialog title')
dlg.visible(1)

#Link dialog to center of window
viz.link(viz.CenterCenter,dlg)

#Hide dialog and add gallery when accept is pressed
def DialogAccept():
	dlg.visible(0)
	viz.add('gallery.ive')
vizact.onbuttonup(dlg.accept,DialogAccept)

[vizmaster]

I am new to this type of programming. If you add a
print 'The End'
at the end of the script the print statement is executed. This tells me execution continues. So I must not be approaching this the right way. What I am trying to do is prompt a user for his name. He enters it using a onscreen keyboard I have coded. Once the user has entered their name they loop over a sequence of dialogs for a set amount of time. In my code the other dialogs appear since the execution continues.

[farshizzo]

If your print statement is in the global scope then it will be executed during the script loading. All that sample code does is register a callback for when the accept button of the dialog is clicked and calls the specified function. If you need to display a series of dialogs sequentially, then I highly recommend using tasks. Using a callback approach will become very difficult once you have more than one dialog.