[Flamingo] Evolution of command button component classes

[IanMayo]

Version of Radiance (current development is 3.0-SNAPSHOT)

2.5.1

Sub-project (Neon, Trident, Substance, Flamingo, ...)

Flamingo

Version of Java (current minimum is 9)

11

Version of OS

MACOS/Linux

The issue you're experiencing (expected vs actual, screenshot, stack trace etc)

We'd like to subclass the Flamingo Command Toggle Button, to include a drop-down menu, like in this UX mockup:

But, since the constructor only has package visibility, we're not able to.

Is it an option to relax the constructor visibility?

Or do you have an alternate strategy for sub-classing a Flamingo control?

[kirill-grouchnikov]

Can you be a little more specific on the particular class? JCommandToggleButton is public and its constructor is public as well.

[IanMayo]

Sorry. It was SubstanceCommandToggleButtonUI that I was referring to.

Hmm, maybe there's an alternate strategy for adding drop-down menu functionality to a toggle button.

[kirill-grouchnikov]

Right, anything in .internal packages is not part of the API and subject to change at any time. That includes all UI delegates - from Substance and Flamingo.

But let's take a step back and talk about the specific requirement - adding drop-down menu to a toggle button. Can you point me to where this functionality is available (preferably in Office) so that I can see the mechanics behind it? Is it that the button has two area, one for action / toggle, and one for showing the popup?

[IanMayo]

Yes, the button has two areas. See the video of our implementation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeQPCyOI8Fg

In MACOS, a toggle button is used to start/stop screen recording. A drop-down menu is used to specify the audio source for the recording:

Here's a microsoft article on the concept of a Split Button:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/office_standards/ms-customui/aa41c698-c7e8-4486-b15f-b73bedbf2be8

As the top video shows, we have a working implementation of the control, but it was only possible by duplicating SubstanceCommandToggleButtonUI then inserting the new UI elements. It would seem to be better engineering to extend the existing class, so we only have to add/maintain new functionality.

If we've missed an approach that better meets the spirit/intention of Radiance, then I welcome your guidance :-)

[kirill-grouchnikov]

I think it would be best to provide this functionality in Flamingo itself.

I'll need to check a few things first. The separation of JCommandButton vs JCommandToggleButton always felt a bit weird to me. I think I tried to mirror the separation between JButton and JToggleButton in core Swing, but of course that was a long time ago, so I don't quite remember my line of reasoning.

Now they are both created from a Command object, and there's a lot of similar / identical code between the basic and Substance UI delegates of these two classes. And of course there's JCommandMenuButton and JCommandToggleMenuButton.

Maybe this distinction isn't right any more. Same as there is no separate JCommandSplitButton or JCommandPopupButton - these behavioral aspects are controlled by different content model (command) bits, the same as the toggle-ability.

It would be a breaking change though to combine these four classes into two, along with the matching changes to combine the underlying model implementations - ActionRepeatableButtonModel and ActionToggleButtonModel.

[IanMayo]

provide this functionality in Flamingo itself

Sure, @kirill-grouchnikov - it's your show!

I guess we can keep our "local" version for now, and adopt a Flamingo version when it arrives.

[kirill-grouchnikov]

I'm going to change the title of this bug to reflect the more narrow scope of the feature request.

[IanMayo]

My original intention was that once the class in question became extensible we'd contribute a PR containing the new feature.

But, thanks for generously taking it on yourself, @kirill-grouchnikov .

[kirill-grouchnikov]

There are no plans to make the UI delegate classes be part of the public API surface.

[kirill-grouchnikov]

The first pass is done. See sample in https://github.com/kirill-grouchnikov/radiance/blob/master/demos/flamingo-demo/src/main/java/org/pushingpixels/demo/flamingo/common/TestCommandToggleButtons.java#L116 on how to combine toggle for main action with secondary content.

The second pass (tentative) will fold JCommandMenuButton into JCommandButton

[kirill-grouchnikov]

Overall 960 lines fewer in the codebase after consolidating the command button component classes and their UI delegates.

[IanMayo]

Thanks for this support @kirill-grouchnikov We have a temporary fix in place, until the next Flamingo release. To help our planning - do you have a planned date for the release of 3.0 ?

[kirill-grouchnikov]

https://github.com/kirill-grouchnikov/radiance/blob/master/versions.txt