[Developers] Interface changes for OpendTect 3.0

[Bert Bril]

Hi all,

We're working hard to get the 3.0 beta ready by the end of the week (but 
I fear we'll have a small overrun so expect it next week). This is a 
major release, so you'll see quite some interface changes compared to 
the 2.4 series.

In general, the compiler will help you spot the changes. Some comments 
on changes that may be cumbersome:

* uiDialog::Setup no longer has defaults for 2nd and 3rd argument. The 
first is the window title text, the second is the title text to be 
displayed on the dialog itself. The third is the help ID for the window, 
coupled to the WindowLinkTable.txt (as described in a posting in Sep on 
this list, see http://lists.opendtect.org/pipermail/developers). If you 
pass null to 2nd and 3rd, you'll get exactly the same behavior as before 
(i.e. no title on the dialog itself and no help button). But now you did 
this on purpose: face the wrath of the users when they can't get help 
for this window directly from the button.

* BoolInpSpec (most often used in conjunction with uiGenInput) now takes 
one non-default argument: the initial value. The first argument used to 
be the text for 'true' (default "Yes"), but now it's the value itself 
and you are forced to think about the initial value. The texts still 
have the same defaults.

* Some reworking of objects and header files:
   - UserIDObject (uidobj.h) => NamedObject (namedobj.h)
   - Statistics functions like Stat_getRandom()are now in stat*.h (in new
     Algo subdir), e.g statrand.h contains Stats::RandGen::get().
   - Pol2D was moved to SurveyInfo, and should no longer be used - see
     Hélène's post of 21 Dec 2006) - also affects e.g uiAttrDescEd
     constructor.

These are the main things I picked up when I tried to build some 2.4 
plugin code under 3.0 .


Also think about whether you need your own data storage directory (post 
from me 17 Oct 2006). Or maybe you can use the new SeisImporter for your 
own special format - it also handles crossline sorted data (which means 
users can now read crossline sorted SEG-Y and 'Simple' data BTW). Or 
look at the wavelet loading on how to make importing data formats 
generalized and storable. The (ui)FlatDisp classes. And more ...


/Bert

-- 
-- Bert Bril / OpendTect developer at dGB
-- Nijverheidstraat 11-2, 7511 JM Enschede, The Netherlands
-- mailto:Bert.Bril at opendtect.org , http://opendtect.org
-- Tel: +31 534315155 , Fax: +31 534315104