3D PLM Enterprise Architecture

The CATInteractiveApplication class is the base class for all interactive applications, whether it displays only a single dialog window or it is a classical Single Document Interface (SDI) application, or a Multiple Document Interface (MDI) application such as CAA Version 5.

Programmer's Guide

To create an interactive application, you should:

• Create a class for your application that derives from CATInteractiveApplication
• Override at least the methods BeginApplication and EndApplication.

Refer to Designing Your Interactive Application.

The programming tasks fall into the following topics:

• Managing the Interactive Application Lifecycle
• Retrieving Arguments
• Managing Resources
• Managing the Contextual Help
• Managing the Cursor
• Managing the Display
• Retrieving the User Interface Style

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Managing the Interactive Application Lifecycle

Your interactive application constructor should have a single argument: its name.

class MyIntApplication : public CATInteractiveApplication
{
  MyIntApplication (const CATString & iName);
  virtual ~MyIntApplication ();
  void BeginApplication();
  int EndApplication();
}
...
MyIntApplication ::MyIntApplication (const CATString & iName)
                 : CATInteractiveApplication(NULL, iName)
{}
...
// Instantiate the application
CATString sName("ApplicationName");
MyIntApplication IntAppliInstance(sName);

The following methods are available to manage the interactive application life cycle. They are called in this order after the application constructor and before the application destructor:

You need to override the methods BeginApplication and EndApplication. Refer to Designing Your Interactive Application. Their signatures are as follows:

• BuildApplicationEnvironment

  virtual void BuildApplicationEnvironment(int argc, char ** argv, char ** env);

  where:

  argc	Number of arguments passed to the application
  argv	Argument list
  env	Environment variable list

• BeginApplication

  virtual void BeginApplication();

• RunApplication

  virtual void RunApplication();

• EndApplication

  virtual int EndApplication();

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Retrieving Arguments

You can retrieve the arguments passed to the application using the BuildApplicationEnvironment method thanks to the GetArgs method.

...
int argCount;      // Number of arguments
char ** argArray;  // Arguments passed as a table of character strings
IntAppliInstance.GetArgs(&argCount, &argArray);
...

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Managing Resources

You can assign a splash screen using the SetSplashScreen method, usually in the BeginApplication method.

...
MyIntApplication::BeginApplication()
{
  ...
  CATString splash("MyAppliSplash");
  IntAppliInstance.SetSplashScreen(splash);
  ...
}
...

MyAppliSplash should be the file name of the MyAppliSplash.bmp file located in the splashscreens directory of the graphic directory defined using the CATGraphicPath environment variable. For the P2 user interface style, it can be an animated image, such as MyAppliSplash.avi, with Windows only.

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Managing the Contextual Help

You can request that the contextual help be automatically set to any control of any window. This enables the end user to select the What's This command which turns the cursor to a question mark, and then click any control to display its associated "Long Help" in a balloon. This is done by the SetAutomaticContextualHelp method.

IntAppliInstance.SetAutomaticContextualHelp();

Managing the Cursor

You can request that the cursor be changed to a busy cursor using the SetBusyCorsor method.

IntAppliInstance.SetBusyCursor();

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Managing the Display

You can request that the display be updated using the UpdateDisplay method.

IntAppliInstance.UpdateDisplay();

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Retrieving the User Interface Style

You can retrieve the user interface style using the GetUIClass method.

int UserInterfaceStyle;
UserInterfaceStyle = pIntApplication->GetUIClass();
if (UserInterfaceStyle == 1)
  ... // User Interface Style is P1
else if (UserInterfaceStyle == 2)
  ... // User Interface Style is P2
else
  ... // Error

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History

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