I have a fairly big application with a pTk interface. While writing this app, I began to wonder if I was doing the "right thing" when I designed the way different bits communicate.

The application is broken into several distinct interfaces, each has a "Manager" object that handles a specific set of related UIs, for example I have a DisplayManager that handles the details of creating and controlling various screens that display data, I also have a ConfigurationManager that handles the presentation of configuration screens. Each manager collects input from its children and then operates on the back-end objects, mostly through registered callbacks or eval-ing standard methods on child objects. 

sub UpdatePanels {
    my $self = shift;

    my $net = $self->network;
    my @sensors = $net->sensors;

    my @display_objects = ( @{$self->display_objects} );

    foreach my $display ( @display_objects ) {
        eval {
            $display->UpdatePanel( $self->session_state, @sensors );
        };
        warn $@ if $@;
    }

} # END UpdatePanels

[download]

After further reading and experimentation, it seems to me that a better design might be to use Tk's event system to pass information. 

sub UpdatePanels {
    my $self = shift;
    $self->eventGenerate('<<UpdatePanels>>');
}

[download]

Of course, I would need to create the UpdatePanel virtual event and bind a callback for each display object for this to work.

What I would like to know is:

  1. What are the reasons to keep the design the way I have it?
  2. What are the reasons to switch to pTk managed events?
  3. Should I be considering an entirely different approach that I did not outline above?
  4. Can you recommend any good resources on GUI and/or event driven style of programming?


TGI says moo

In reply to Perl Tk - propagating events by TGI

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