ACT Question on Controller Classes

Nick Ramseyer

Hello! I am working on some ACT extensions and am assigning a controller class to my ACT object. I recently discovered that if I use the same convention as the xml the controller class will be called when using the objects callbacks. For example here is an object with several of its callbacks:

If I set up my controller class using the same names (thing like oninit and onadd) I don't have to actually have those functions in my main.py file and it calls them directly from the controller:

This works great for saving some confusion on routing the objects primary callbacks, however my question is can a controller class also be used to route property callbacks, so they don't have to appear in the main.py file?

For example, say you have a property or a property group, I would want to route a function from that property group that to the class controller directly. This way I don't have to create an intermediate function in the main.py file that routes it to the controller using the object.Controller.do_something(object, prop)

I tried just calling the function and got an error saying that the function could not be found in the python file (meaning the main.py file). I would like to know if the controller class has any code that routes the property callbacks, or am I stuck having to make an intermediate function between the two. It would cut down on a lot of confusion if I can just call the function in the controller class directly so I figured I'd ask if anyone knew if this could be done.

Mike.Thompson

@Nick Ramseyer , for sure you can do this. I highly recommend using the classes concept for building anything other than very simple ACT apps. The property class object also allows you to effectively have the properties that can act across multiple objects, as they are defined in a class.

ACT objects defined by a class also have a property "Controller" (example: MyACTObj.Controller). This is the pythonic class instance and you can have other methods in the class like:

MyACTObj.Controller.SomeClassMethod()

Another thing the class can do is typical pythonic inheritance. So you can build some base classes that operate in the core ways you want, then branch off from there to make more custom objects and/or properties. I have used this often for a selector class where I want a drop down. I have a base class, but then do specialized things for various drop down options, like selecting objects in tree for example.

Below is an example of a class for a property

class MyACTObjProperty():

    def __init__(self, ExtAPI, Obj, Prop):

        #Obj = the ACT obect

        #Prop = The ACT object property

        pass


    def oninit(self,Obj,Prop):

        """called when the object is first initialized on start."""

        pass


    def onadd(self,Obj,Prop):

        pass


    def onvalidate(self,Obj,Prop):

        pass


    def SomeClassMethod():

        """Do something here"""

        pass