NAME

UserOperation - An operation which can be performed by an application user on an object or objects of a given class.

SYNOPSIS

The following perl code defines a UserOperation object of subclass Query::Results::UserOperation. This subclass of the UserOperation class works only with, surprise, Query::Results objects.

  $VAR1 = bless
  (
      {
          name => 'open_in_emacs',

          label => 'Open in Emacs',    
          tooltip => 'Open the selected query results in Emacs.',

          subject_class => 'Query::Results',

          sort_position => 4,

          validity_test_function => sub { 1 },

          execution_function => sub
          {
              my ($self, $results) = @_;        

              # Since the filename is undef, the dump_to_file autogenerates a temp file and returns the name.
              my $filename = $results->dump_to_file(undef, headers => 'ask', tabdelimit => 'ask');

              unless ($filename)
              {
                  App->error_message("Error dumping file.");
                  return 0;
              }

              system "(emacs $filename; rm $filename) &";

              $self->status_message("Emacs window opened.");        
              return 1;
          }        
      },
      'Query::Results::UserOperation'
  );

Adding files with similar text to the correct directory will cause new UserOperation objects to show themselves in right-click menus, and in other application which look for UserOperations. For example, adding files with similar text to the directory $PERL_OBJECT_PATH/Query/Results/UserOperation will cause new Query::Results::UserOperation objects to show themselves in right-click menus and in other places where application look for UserOperations for objects they work-with.

DESCRIPTION

Objects of class UserOperation impliment a specific operation for objects of an associated class.

Each of these is similar to an object method, and may in-fact simply wrap a method for a particular class. UserOperation objects are distinct from object methods in the following ways:

1. Methods are available to the programmer, but are not necessarily available to a user for invocation at will. UserOperation objects are available to the user directly, simply by existing and being associated with a given object class. Note that they can have conditional code embedded to limit their availablity to particular applications, situations, etc.

2. Methods vary in whether they expect parameters, and what those parameters are. UserOperation objects expect only an object or set of objects of the required class. Any parameters required by the operation will have to resolve themselves, often by popping up a dialog box, prompting the user at the command-line, or better yet, doing either depending on application context. (i.e. using the App::UI generic user interface module)

Often, when a user operation object is constructed, it is a good time to ask whether a new object method should be constructed, and the user operation object should be a lightweight wrapper around the method, possibly providing a user interface to the method's parameters.

Each UserOperation works on a specific class of object, returnable and settable by the subject_class() method. In most cases, a derived class is created for which this value is constant. For example, user operations for the Clone object will be of type Clone::UserOperation, which @ISA UserOperation, but which overrides the class method to always return 'Clone'.

METHODS

new($name)

The constructor for a UserOperation object always takes a unique name. It will check the filesystem for an object of that name, and load it if it exists. Otherwise a new object will be created with that name.

subject_class([$class_name])

Get the name of the class of object which this UserOperation operates upon.

label([$text])

Get or set the default label text for a given UserOperation object.

tooltip([$text])

Get or set the tooltip text for a given UserOperation object.

sort_position([$index])

Get or set the relative sort position this UserOperation should have relative to other UOs of the same subclass.

validity_test_function([\&function])

Get or set the function which determines whether the operation can occur on a given object. This function will be passed the object or objects which may be operated upon as parameters. Often this code tests the application name, consults the database, or makes other checks which ignore the actual object instance(s) passed-in.

execution_function([\&function])

Get or set the function which invokes the operation on instance(s) of the given subject_class. This function will be passed the object or objects which are to be operated upon as parameters.

validate($object, [$object, ...])

This method calls the validity_test_function for the passed-in objects, which should be of class subject_class.

execute($object, [$object, ...])

This method calls the execution_function for for the passed-in objects, which should be of class subject_class.

BUGS

• Objects must be manually created as shown in the synopsis and saved on the filesystem. The methods to not support creation within the application. (ie "get" works but "set" does not where the documentation says "get or set".)

• The error handling structure is not complete. This class will probably inherit from App, and do $self->error_message when errors occur, etc.