Inspector, Multi-Selection, Undo and more

[HeftyCoder]

This PR is a result of #173. Apart from the inspector, it includes some fixes, optimization and additions. Most of the updates are showcased in the video below.

show_case.mp4

Inspector

For the inspector, there's a new InspectorGUI.py file. It contains:

• InspectorWidget: A simple wrapper for holding the actual [BaseNodeInspector] inspector.
• BaseNodeInspector: The base inspector; create_inspector must be implemented, where the user can insert their GUI using the parent parameter. An unload method is provided for cleanup.
• NodeInspector: A basic implementation of BaseNodeInspector, where a NodeInspectorWidget is used. This inspector shows the title of the node, the python and ryven id and meta-data information. The attach_inspector method can be implemented to attach a configuration gui between the title and the metadata. The NodeInspector is the default for any node that hasn't explicitly defined an inspector.

For connecting an inspector to a node, a new decorator inspector_gui is defined which works like the node_gui decorator.

A new example package named traits_inspector_test is given. It uses traits and traits ui to rapidly implement a configuration window for the Rand node. Configuration and value generation are undoable and there's a generate button for getting a new random value. State saving-loading is a simple hard-coded implementation, nothing generic here. The random state is not saved.

This inspector could serve as an example on how one can use traits to create a base inspector for their packages.

Undo

New additions:

• Every flow command must set its text. Since we need a generic way to acquire an object's name to display in undo commands, a PrettyName interface is defined in GUIBase.py. It can be used on any object to define how it should be displayed in text format. It has been used on NodeItem, ConnectionItem and DrawingObject.
• NestedCommand. Not currently used, but provides a way to bundle commands together.
• DelegateCommand. A command whose undo and redo are passed functions. The example RandNode uses it to implement undo functionality.
• An undo history tab was added in the flow view.

Selection

The selection system has been refactored to work with the undo system. It utilizes a new _SelectionMode enum that has INSTANT, UNDO_CLICK and UNDO_DRAG values.

• INSTANT: Selection isn't added in undo stack. Whenever anything is created or removed, this mode is used.
• UNDO_CLICK: A single selection that occurs when the user presses on an object and is added to the undo stack.
• UNDO_DRAG: If the user presses on the canvas / view, then the selection event terminates on mouseRelease. Anything that has been selected is a single multi-select event passed to the undo-stack.

Node and Connection items

The NodeItemAnimator has been expanded to include a scaling animation. Whenever a node is updated, it plays that animation along with the others. You can see it in the showcase video.

When a connection item is added or deleted, forced the corresponding node items to update their representation; This fixes a bug where ports weren't showing correct visuals.

ConnectionItem has two additional useful classes:

• ConnectionItemsAnimation that animates any abstract QGraphicsItem over the path to create a visual flow. A QGraphicsItemWrapper class is provide in GUIBase.py for allowing the animation of any item, even if it doesn't implement QObject.
• ConnectionAnimation that utilizes the ConnectionItemsAnimation to toggle the data flow. You can see it at ~0:57 in the video. The toggling happens on click and it's for demonstration purposes. In this PR nothing happens when clicking. However, this item might be useful for anyone that wants to expand Ryven or use it as a template for something else.

I've optimized the way these animations are created, played, paused and resumed. Here's a snapshot; a gif showing there's no visible performance problem.

Flow View

• Fixed any Flow Theme that had a bug caused by the node_color being a string instead of a color. If I haven't missed anything, every theme is bug free.
• The flow view correctly updates the background when changing it. This utilizes the resetCachedContent() function.
• Optimized the drawBackground of the flow view. It uses only the visible rect and not the whole scene. It's much faster now. Pretty and Fast modes aren't really that much different performance-wise now.
• The view's transformation and scrolling is also saved along with the project now.

Unfortunately, I could not fix the horrendous performance when there are a lot of items and we're zooming in / out (essentially scaling). I read that it may have something to do with setting the correct cache mode (1, 2), but I couldn't find anything that works.

This is all! Should provide a substantial update for Ryven.

(I didn't include panning and zooming in the undo. Perhaps it can be added at a later time.)
(Ideally I'd also like to implement port validation with specific data types and a multi port where you can add N connections automatically, but these two may need ryvencore changes or be package specific, so I opted out of this feature for now)

[leon-thomm]

Awesome, this has a lot of great stuff! The undo history tab has been on my TODO for like two years and I never went and actually did it.

Is it possible for you to pull out all the inspector stuff from this PR (via git rebase, revert, cherry-pick and whatnot)? I would like to do that separately. Everything else is fixing stuff and improving Flow UI as far as I can see.

I have a few thoughts on the rest. Since there's a lot, I can offer to have a zoom/teams call instead of discussing everything here, which might save a lot of time. But if you prefer to keep it here, that's fine for me.

[HeftyCoder]

Is it possible for you to pull out all the inspector stuff from this PR

The base inspector stuff is only a single file addition which I think is already quite intuitive and ready to use. The only other thing it affects is flow_ui.py where it is added. I would like to keep this here if possible. I can remove the example which uses traits if you want. Ryven doesn't depend on that. So, if you don't find any massive faults with it, I'd like to keep it as is. The main reason is that I'm going to create a new application for signal (etc) processing utilizing this improved version of Ryven, based on the concept of a start-stop button that we talked about in our e-mail correspondence. I would like to finish any changes that are Ryven compatible as fast as possible before creating a non-compatible repository.

I have a few thoughts on the rest.

We could arrange a call. I'm assuming you want to talk more about the RandNode traits example and less about the basic inspector implementation which is completely agnostic. Unless I got that completely wrong and you want to talk about everything else except the inspector.

[leon-thomm]

The base inspector stuff is only a single file addition which I think is already quite intuitive and ready to use.

I find some things confusing and the API is not yet well integrated with the rest, so I would request changes which might delay things. But if you're waiting for all features here to be merged anyway we can keep it here. Conceptually, I think your approach is fine.

I can remove the example which uses traits if you want. Ryven doesn't depend on that.

that would be good

We could arrange a call. I'm assuming you want to talk more about the RandNode traits example and less about the basic inspector implementation which is completely agnostic. Unless I got that completely wrong and you want to talk about everything else except the inspector.

It's kind of the opposite ;) some notes on the rest and discussing the inspector stuff. But can share some thoughts on node properties as well.

[HeftyCoder]

These last commits have:

• A more efficient way of creating the package visual tree. It now allows for any number of nesting. Packaging hasn't been changed, only the functionality for generating the visual tree.
• Searching method for the packages, as well as including the nodes there for completion.

The nodes widget below the package widget should also be refactored to use a QListView, which allows for far more efficient searching internally through regex (not for this PR)

[leon-thomm]

Btw. do you know why we cannot hide widgets in sliders anymore since the docking additions? I can put this on the TODO but it's bothering me quite a bit so I'd rather fix this sooner than later. I want to be able to drag a splitter handle all the way to one end so at the end it fully hides the content in that direction.

[HeftyCoder]

I think it has to do with the fact that it's not a splitter anymore. Docks can be closed by right clicking on the title of a dock or through their X button or in the background of the main window in which the docks reside. For main window docks, you can also close them from View/Windows and for flow docks from the Menu button in the Graphs View. I don't think you can hide the whole dock area by dragging the splitter.

The only docks that I made un-closeable are the flows and the nodes.

[leon-thomm]

Isn't the docking stuff just another widget? Can't we put a dock widget in a splitter?

[HeftyCoder]

The docking stuff attach to a main window's predefined dock areas (left, top, right, bottom). They have various settings to make them float or be tabbed and etc... But I'm pretty sure you can't put a dock inside a splitter. I tried searching for this when I was making it but didn't find anything.

[HeftyCoder]

Is it that important? We could add menu functions that close them all or open them all.

[leon-thomm]

Hm yeah I can't come up with a better solution right now...

[HeftyCoder]

Done, check it out.

The code is the same for both main_window.py and flow_ui.py. Leaving it up to you if you want to make it into a utility somewhere.

[leon-thomm]

thanks! i'll take a look later, can merge afterwards

[HeftyCoder]

What I meant is that currently the identifier for any Data type is only the class name, since we only pass the extended package name identifier only to the node classes. Shouldn't we pass it to the Data classes as well? Otherwise, two data classes with the same name from different packages will collide with each other.

Oh, also, I got no answer on this, unless I missed it.

[leon-thomm]

Oh, also, I got no answer on this, unless I missed it.

Sorry, forgot about it and yes I misread your comment, of course we should do the same to Data. I just pushed it.

[HeftyCoder]

Alright! We're good to go I think

[leon-thomm]

Alright! We're good to go I think

just check my review comment above

[HeftyCoder]

The last review I see is about ItemIsSelectable

[leon-thomm]

I commented on b542a40 flow_ui.py

[HeftyCoder]

Sorry, I'm searching but it shows 0 comments on my end.

[leon-thomm]

🤔
strange. let's just do this:

[HeftyCoder]

Weird that I can't see it. Anyway, I put that there so we could close only the docks of the flow through its menu in the graph view if needed and not all the docks everywhere.

Also, now that I'm thinking about it, should we only close any tabified docks and not any detached, floating ones?

[leon-thomm]

Weird that I can't see it. Anyway, I put that there so we could close only the docks of the flow through its menu if needed and not all the docks everywhere.

ohh now I see where it is, yes that makes sense

Also, now that I'm thinking about it, should we only close any tabified docks and not any detached, floating ones?

good point, do you think this is easy to do?

[HeftyCoder]

do you think this is easy to do?

done

[leon-thomm]

looking good 👍

[HeftyCoder]

Found another potentially good thing. We can make it so that the menu isn't closed when clicking window actions, i.e not closing when pressing Menu/Windows/Inspector in the graph view menu. That way, the user can toggle many things at once.

[leon-thomm]

I agree. I found this

[leon-thomm]

Okay, I have this working:

        # add all docks to menu
        for w in all_dock_widgets:
            def toggle(checked, w=w):
                # second parameter is to avoid the closure problem
                # https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3431676/creating-functions-in-a-loop
                w.setVisible(checked)
            label = w.windowTitle()
            cb = QCheckBox(label, self)
            cb.setChecked(True)
            cb.toggled.connect(toggle)
            action = QWidgetAction(self)
            action.setDefaultWidget(cb)
            windows_menu.addAction(action)

I'll push to pr176

edit: unfortunately, w.isVisible() seems to be False at this point, which is why I hard-coded setChecked(True). Let me know if you have a better idea

[HeftyCoder]

It also only works when pressing the check box or the name. If you press slightly to the right it closes the menu. And currently it isn't highlighted when hovered.

Due to the fact that you may open a saved project, the tab would be closed but the action would be highlighted. I think this is too hacky. Perhaps add it to the TODO list? I'll search for a bit but I think it's too minor a thing to keep this PR open, since there is no apparent easy and correct way to do this.

[leon-thomm]

agreed