Oh, parents, what have you become?

General
1

Now, parents are no more what they were in the past:

In the past (API 1), things were simpler:
a control had a parent (a window, a container or a control) and, logically, this parent had coordinates.
It was easy to get coordinates of the control inside a window (we need that to display a menuitem at a specific place).

Now (API 2) parent is… on object !
I don’t see in what else than a container or a control or a window a control can be embedded…

Now, if we want to get the coordinates of a control which is inside a canvas which is inside a container which is inside a pagepanel (we have this case)… we have to do a complex code like:

Oh no ! Things are more complex than in the following code:
a control inside a control has coordinates inside its window, but when a control is inside a container that is inside a control…
Fixed now inside the code… :slight_smile:

var ctrl as DesktopUiControl
var ctn as DesktopContainer
var trueLeft,trueTop as integer

trueLeft = me.left
trueTop = me.top

if me.Parent isa DesktopUiControl then
  ctrl = DesktopUiControl(me.Parent)
elseif me.Parent isa DesktopContainer then
  ctn = DesktopContainer(me.Parent)
end if

if ctn <> nil or ctrl <> nil then
  while true
    if ctn <> nil then
      trueLeft = trueLeft + ctn.Left
      trueTop = trueTop + ctn.top
    elseif ctrl <> nil then
      'trueLeft = trueLeft + ctrl.Left
      'trueTop = trueTop + ctrl.top
    end if
    
    if ctn <> nil then
      ctrl = nil
      if ctn.Parent isa DesktopUiControl then
        ctrl = DesktopUiControl(ctn.Parent)
        ctn = nil
      elseif ctn.Parent isa DesktopContainer then
        ctn = DesktopContainer(ctn.Parent)
      else
        exit
      end if
      
    else
      ctn = nil
      if ctrl.Parent isa DesktopUiControl then
        ctrl = DesktopUiControl(ctrl.Parent)
      elseif ctrl.Parent isa DesktopContainer then
        ctn = DesktopContainer(ctrl.Parent)
        ctrl = nil
      else
        exit
      end if
    end if
    
  wend
end if

Silly, no ?
Having direct properties for controls and containers coordinates like leftinwindow, topinwindow would be a good thing.

2

They’re objects because not all objects on a view are DesktopControl or a DesktopUIControl. Timers, Sockets, SerialPorts, etc are all subclasses of object but are not actually controls.