Re: renaming some classes and using the octave namespace in the GUI

[Daniel J Sebald]

On 02/08/2018 10:56 AM, John W. Eaton wrote:
> We have a variety of class names in the GUI that are inconsistent and 
> that I think are a bit worse than they could be.  For example, we have 
> variable_editor (OK) but terminal_dock_widget (not so OK).  I propose 
> the following changes to better reflect the purpose of each object and 
> to drop the suffix that indicates the type of Qt object that we are 
> inheriting from:
>
>    doc_browser, not documentation_dock_widget
>    file_browser, not files_dock_widget
>    history_browser, not history_dock_widget
>    command_terminal, not terminal_dock_widget
>    workspace_browser, not workspace_view
>
> I'm not sure about command_terminal.  Is there something better?
>
> We are also inconsistent in the names passed to QObject::setObjectName. 
> For exmaple, we have things like HistoryDockWidget, Shortcut_Manager, 
> variable_editor, OctaveTerminal (and TerminalDockWidget!).  What should 
> these be?  Does changing the name affect anything else?

No, not if object name is not seen.  The "Title" is typically what is 
seen.  In a changeset I'm creating, the object name is important because 
for the variable editor the object name matches exactly the Octave space 
variable name, so that when one tries to open the variable in the editor 
more than once it checks all the object names in the space to see it 
isn't already open.

That doesn't mean consistency isn't good, because often one does a 
QObject->findChild(Object *, QString name), and consistency makes memory 
recall easier.


> I also propose to move all the GUI classes inside the octave namespace.
>
> Any objections?

Could we wait a week on this?  I'm right in the process of wrapping up 
some changes to the variable editor that turn it into a QMainWindow type 
of interface (as opposed to QTabWidget) and such a sweeping change would 
make a mess for patches.  Also, I'm doing some restructuring to make 
things more in line with signals/slots and that might influence naming 
convention in the space.

I'm not sure about the "browser" name change.  I prefer the names match 
what they are derived from.  This is sort of how Qt is set up, e.g., 
here's one hierarchy of inheritance:

QAbstractButton
QPushButton
QCommandLinkButton

The reason this is a good thing to do is because the OOP philosophy is 
to build on previous classes (reuse), just adding a few new features at 
the next level.  The name similarity aids in remembering what something 
is derived from and the member functions it would have inherited.

Dan