Getting starting MEL UI design: Quick questions

[Buexe]

Usually when I create controls they are enabled by default, do you have any flag that disables them, like "-en 0" or something like that? And by whic hmechanism do you bind the controls to the node`s attributes. Maybe you could give an example of how you create the control and attach it to the node`s attributes to check your problem.

The other thing with testing nodes is, that you can use nodeType to get the exact type of node, but remember that some "objects" like a polyMesh consist of a transform and a shape node, so to see which kind of object you deal with in this situation probably the nodeType command on the shape node is the better choice.
Hope this helps

[lxdengar]

Usually when I create controls they are enabled by default, do you have any flag that disables them, like "-en 0" or something like that? And by whic hmechanism do you bind the controls to the node`s attributes. Maybe you could give an example of how you create the control and attach it to the node`s attributes to check your problem.


Thanks - no, no '-en 0' specific controls. Essentially, the window immediately calls a 'check' function which checks to see if the particle system exists (which consists of a particle object, and emitter, and an object from which to emit from):

global proc Check()
{
global string $Pshape[];
global string $ParticleObj[];

if (`particleExists $Pshape[0]` == 1)
{
print "Found existing Particle system.\n";
select $ParticleObj[0];
getPSAttr();
}
else if (`particleExists $Pshape[0]` == 0)
{
createPS();
}
}

The getPSAttr call goes and gets the attributes custom ones, and returns the shape[0], the Plane[0], and the Emit[0] objects. CreatePS goes and creates a new system, and then calls the getPSAttr function again, to get the custom values again. These are Per-Particle attributes like Speed, visibility, Opacity, etc.

I have a delete button, which deletes all of the objects above; a create button puts them back (calls createPS). The system gets created again, but the values in my sliders and fields remain grey.
Again, simply closing the window and calling showWindow again makes all the fields and sliders live!

the window creation sliders look something like this:

floatSliderGrp
-label "Particle Rate" -field true -cw 1 115
-value 10 -minValue 0 -maxValue 100 -step 1
-fieldMinValue 0 -fieldMaxValue 10000
PRate;

and one of the getPSAttr calls looks like this:

getAttr ($PEmit[0] + ".rate");

I'm sure its something simple, but I don't know what I'm missing. The fields go grey the moment I hit delete.

As for the nodetype command - is there an easy way to have it check the shape node?

Thanks for the help!

[Buexe]

I think that once you want the control to control a new node and it`s attribute you simply have to use the edit mode ( -e ) to tell the control. Check this:

window -title "Attr Field Slider Groups";
string $objName[] = `sphere`;
columnLayout;

// I use a global string here so that it can be read by other procedures
global string $myAttrCtrl;
$myAttrCtrl = `attrFieldSliderGrp -min -10.0 -max 10.0 -at ($objName[0]+".tx")`;
showWindow;

// This deletes the object and the control gets greyed out
delete $objName[0]

// Create a new object
string $newObject[] = `polyCube`;

// Attach the control to the node and some attribute ( note the -e flag)
attrFieldSliderGrp -e -min -10.0 -max 10.0 -at ($newObject[0]+".tx") $myAttrCtrl;

I hope this helps

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