[OpenLayers-Dev] Toolbar Status

[Stephen Woodbridge]

Christopher Schmidt wrote:
> As part of the development efforts on the vector branch, we've developed
> a toolbar functionality plan. I'm going to post some more on this, but
> we're coming down on the tail end of a ~14 hour hack session, so I'm
> just posting some of the results now.
> 
> So:
> 
>  http://dev.openlayers.org/sandbox/vector-2.4/lib/OpenLayers/Control/Panel.js
> 
> This panel implments a toolbar. A toolbar gathers a set of controls.
> Controls which can be put on a toolbar include any tools which include
> either:
>  * activate/deactivate -- Modal and 'toggle' tools will use this
>  * trigger -- 'buttons' (a la zoomToMaxExtent) will use this
>  
> We've already got modal tools working: The MouseToolbar code has been
> rewritten with this: 
> 
> http://dev.openlayers.org/sandbox/vector-2.4/examples/mousetoolbar.html
> 
> You can see that the code is now only about a half dozen lines of real
> code:
> 
> http://dev.openlayers.org/sandbox/vector-2.4/lib/OpenLayers/Control/MouseToolbar.js
> 
> If you look to the bottom of
> http://dev.openlayers.org/sandbox/vector-2.4/theme/default/style.css
> you'll see where all images are defined. This means that by just editing
> CSS, you can change the position, size, and images of your toolbar.
> 
> You can see this in action on
> http://dev.openlayers.org/sandbox/vector-2.4/examples/panel.html , which
> overrides the CSS and displays images from different places, as well as
> using a blank div for one control (in this case, the zoombox). 
> 
> This can be easily put into a seperate div: simply pass a {div:
> $('mydiv")} option into the constructor.
> 
> I *think* this encapsulates much of the functionality that existing
> button bars have demonstrated. Controls continue to have their own div
> -- which can be placed inside the map or not -- and panels control the
> display of the items -- via CSS, which allows you to do funky things
> like 'hover', etc.
> 
> (Some of this doesnt work in IE yet. I know.)
> 
> So, the goal is to have 3 types of controls: 
>   * Button: A click triggers an action (like zoom in)
>   * Modal: Turns state on temporarily. Drawing tools  probably use
>     this.
>   * Toggles. Auto-pan might fall under this: when it's active, the map
>     responds. when it's not, it doesn't. 
> 
> Do these fit all the needs address by buttons?    

Is there a need for something like a radio set for modal buttons that 
are mutually exclusive? It can probably be built from the Modal buttons, 
but it might be nice to provide and easy way to do this in the api.

-Steve