Transitions

Transitions provide a convenient way to change the GUI state in a dialog box. Transitions are used to stipple widgets or to rotate regions when some other control in the dialog box is activated. If the behavior in your dialog box can be described in terms of simple transitions, you can use the addTransition method to produce the state changes.

Transitions compare the value of a keyword with a specified value. If the operator condition is met, a message is sent to the specified target object. Transitions have the following prototype: 

addTransition(keyword,
operator, value, tgt, sel, ptr)

For example, when the user selects Wireframe as the render style in the Part Display Options dialog box, Abaqus/CAE does the following:

  • Stipples the Show dotted lines in hidden render style button.

  • Stipples the Show edges in shaded render style button.

  • Checks the Show silhouette edges button.

These transitions can be described as follows:

  • If the value of the render style keyword equals WIREFRAME, send the Show dotted lines... button an ID_DISABLE message.

  • If the value of the render style keyword equals WIREFRAME, send the Show edges in shaded... button an ID_DISABLE message.

  • If the value of the render style keyword equals WIREFRAME, send the Show silhouette edges button an ID_ENABLE message.

You can write these transitions with the Abaqus GUI Toolkit as follows: 

self.addTransition(form.renderStyleKw, AFXTransition.EQ,
    WIREFRAME.getId(), showDottedBtn,
    MKUINT(FXWindow.ID_DISABLE, SEL_COMMAND), None)

self.addTransition(form.renderStyleKw, AFXTransition.EQ,
    WIREFRAME.getId(), showEdgesBtn,
    MKUINT(FXWindow.ID_DISABLE, SEL_COMMAND), None)

self.addTransition(form.renderStyleKw, AFXTransition.EQ,
    WIREFRAME.getId(), showSilhouetteBtn,
    MKUINT(FXWindow.ID_ENABLE, SEL_COMMAND), None)

You can also pass additional user data to the object using the last argument of the addTransition method. Figure 1 shows an example that uses transitions to control how the application stipples widgets.

Figure 1. An example of using transitions to control how the application stipples widgets.