No replies to this topic

[TheOddByte]

Hey everyone, It's been a long time since I've actually posted any program or anything so I thought I'd share this API. I would like to thank those awesome people in AaP for helping me with the most important function of the API. For those who like OOP will probably like this simple API.
So what can this do? Well it can help you with some simple "multitasking"( I'll show you how in just a minute ) by handling multiple objects with the same event. It has some objects already in it that you can use, but you can ofcourse add your own external objects.

Handling multiple objects

This isn't real multitasking, but it can be very useful if you want todo some simple stuff at the same time, the only thing that can ruin this is the sleep function. So I'd suggest you'd use timers instead of that..
Now lets get onto how todo some "multitasking", first of all you'd want to load the API and create a table where all of your objects are

os.loadAPI( "Object" ) -- I've named the file 'Object'
local objects = {}

Now what's the next step? well that would be adding the objects you'd want

--# Don't put '...' as arguments for the objects!
local objects = {
	Object.Textbox.new( ... )
	Object.Button.new( ... )
}

now this should be the final step, creating the loop that draws and handles the objects

while true do
	for i = 1, #objects do
		objects[i]:draw()
	end

	local e = { os.pullEvent() }

	for i = 1, #objects do
		objects[i]:handle( unpack( e ) )
	end
end

Final code

os.loadAPI( "Object" )
local objects = {
	Object.Textbox.new({ native_text_color = colors.white; native_background_color = colors.gray; x = 3; y = 4; placeholder = { text = "Input text"; text_color = colors.lightGray;}; width	  = 17; text_limit = 15; });

	Object.Button.new({ y = 6, x = 43, text = "Submit",  text_color = colors.white,  background_color = colors.red });
}

while true do
	for i = 1, #objects do
		objects[i]:draw()
	end

	local e = { os.pullEvent() }

	for i = 1, #objects do
		objects[i]:handle( unpack( e ) )
	end
end

Creating and loading objects

So you want to create your own objects? Here's how a basic object looks like

local object = {}
object.__index = object

object.new = function( ... )
	local obj = {}
	...
	return setmetatable( obj, object )
end


function object:handle( ... )
	local e = { ... }
	...
end


function object:draw()
	...
end


return object

What functions the object contains are enirely up to you, but you need to make sure that you return the object to make sure it's loaded properly
Here's how you load an object

Object.load( Object, "obj" ) -- the first argument is what the Object API has been loaded as, the second is the path of the external object

or you can load it with

Object:load( "obj" )

Download

pastebin get KDjTejqa Object

Pastebin link

This is required for objects that are in the API

pastebin get xsnDtdK3 draw

Pastebin link

Here's the functions that this API currently adds

load( self, path )

and this is the objects that are in it

Textbox
Dropdown
Button
Text

Feel free to post suggestions on what to add and some feedback.

Edited by TheOddByte, 28 September 2014 - 06:33 PM.