Re: Object with custom properties?

[Lars Clausen <lrclause cs uiuc edu>]

On 12 Feb 2004, Paul D. Kroculick wrote:
> Is there an object that will allow me to enter custom properties?
>
> If I could find an object that let the user input a field of data that
> wasn't put on the drawing/screen, but did appear in the saved file, I
> would be very happy.
>
> I did see the UML-class, but that was overly complicated (for my
> application).
>
> Paul
>
> PS - I searched the mailing list archives, and I see others have asked
> this, but I couldn't find a definitive answer.

The definite answer is no, there isn't any such currently.  Making one
could be either trivial, simple, or difficult, depending on what you want.

If you just want something like the 'Comment' field on the UML Class,
that's trivial.  It's a text property that's not displayed.

If you want to be able to have an arbitrary number of such fields, there's
either the multi-line text field that a few objects use, or you would have
to do something like what the UML class does for operations, attributes etc
(for which a generalization has been worked on, but not much new recently).

If you want to be able to add different types of properties, like boolean,
integer, text, multiple selection etc, you'd need something that interfaces
with the properties system in interesting ways.  That'd be work.

-Lars

-- 
Lars Clausen (http://shasta.cs.uiuc.edu/~lrclause)| HĂ„rdgrim of Numenor
"I do not agree with a word that you say, but I   |----------------------------
will defend to the death your right to say it."   | Where are we going, and
    --Evelyn Beatrice Hall paraphrasing Voltaire  | what's with the handbasket?