fxruby users - Jan 2009 - Monitoring events/messages

I am trying to learn FXRuby (and Fox).  I already know Ruby pretty  
well.  One thing that would help my understanding of FXRuby (and Fox)  
is to be able to monitor (i.e. spy) on events that are sent to a  
particular widget, class of widgets, or every widget.  I tried to  
accomplish this both by redefining the FXObject#handle  as well as  
creating my own subclass with its own #handle method.  Neither way  
did what I was hoping it would do.

Below is my modified hello.rb script.  Can anyone tell me how to do  
what I''m trying to do?  Can it be done at all in FXRuby?

Thanks,
Dave

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

require ''fox16''

include Fox

class FXObject
   alias :old_handle :handle
   def handle(sender, selector, data)
     p [self, sender, selector, data]
     old_handle(sender, selector, data)
   end
end

class MyApp < FXApp
   def handle(sender, selector, data)
     p ["MyApp", sender, selector, data]
     super(sender, selector, data)
   end
end

application = MyApp.new("Hello", "FoxTest")
main = FXMainWindow.new(application, "Hello", nil, nil, DECOR_ALL)
FXButton.new(main, "&Hello, World!", nil, application,
FXApp::ID_QUIT)
application.create()
main.show(PLACEMENT_SCREEN)
application.run()

On Jan 18, 2009, at 1:20 PM, David MacMahon wrote:
> I am trying to learn FXRuby (and Fox).  I already know Ruby pretty  
> well.  One thing that would help my understanding of FXRuby (and  
> Fox) is to be able to monitor (i.e. spy) on events that are sent to  
> a particular widget, class of widgets, or every widget.
You can try setting the target for a particular widget to an  
FXDebugTarget instance. It should then print to the console all of the  
messages that that widget receives, e.g.

	button = FXButton.new(...)
	debug_target = FXDebugTarget.new
	button.target = debug_target

Hope this helps,

Lyle

On Jan 19, 2009, at 7:45 , Lyle Johnson wrote:
> You can try setting the target for a particular widget to an  
> FXDebugTarget instance. It should then print to the console all of  
> the messages that that widget receives, e.g.
>
> 	button = FXButton.new(...)
> 	debug_target = FXDebugTarget.new
> 	button.target = debug_target
Thanks, Lyle,

I found FXDebugTarget after I had sent my message.  That helps  
somewhat, but it seems like it tells me all the events sent by a  
widget rather than all the events received by a widget.

It seems like FXDebugTarget does not forward the event to any other  
widget (i.e. the "real" target).  I think it would be more useful if  
FXDebugTarget''s constructor accepted a target (optionally, defaulting  
to nil).  It would print the info as it does now and then pass the  
event on to the given target (if it''s not nil).  This would make it  
possible to insert and remove an FXDebugTarget at will while still  
allowing the application to function normally...

# Insert FXDebugTarget to see events sent by button
button.target = FXDebugTarget.new(button.target)

# Remove FXDebugTarget from button
button.target = button.target.target

The remove operation assumes that FXDebugTarget has an attribute  
named "target" that returns the original target.  This could be a  
problem if button''s target is a regular widget rather than an  
FXDebugTarget since that will set button''s target to the other  
widget''s target, effectively bypassing button''s original
target.  To
avoid this, perhaps FXDebugTarget''s "target" attribute should
be
called something else (e.g. "original_target").  Then the removal  
would give an error button''s target does not respond to  
"original_target"...

# Safer removal of FXDebugTarget from button
button.target = button.target.original_target

With this proxying in place, I could walk the widget tree and add  
FXDebugtargets to all the wdigets.  Then I''d see all the events!

Thanks for FXRuby,
Dave