Baseclass for Elements and Panels

Attention

The following class is only the baseclass for ImPS_Elements_$elem, not the Panel. I am debating about removing this class alltogther. See at the bottom for more information.

class ImPS_Elements__Base($parent)

Attention

This class is not intended to be initialized directly.

Parameters:

• $parent ([object]) - The parent class

Returns:

• [Baseclass for Elements and Panels]

set_attr($attr, $value)

Parameters:

• $attr ([string]) - Any attribute found in $this.Drawable

• $value ([object]) - The value to set

Returns:

• [object] - $this

get_height()

Parameters:

None

Returns:

• [int]

set_height($height)

Parameters:

• $height ([int])

Returns:

• [object] - $this

get_width()

Parameters:

None

Returns:

• [int]

set_width($width)

Parameters:

• $width ([int])

Returns:

• [object] - $this

get_text()

Parameters:

None

Returns:

• [string]

set_text($text)

Parameters:

• $text ([string])

Returns:

• [object] - $this

set_pos($x, $y)

Parameters:

• $x ([int]) - The x position

• $y ([int]) - The y position

Returns:

• [object] - $this

set_font($font)

Parameters:

• $font ([string]) - For example: “Verdana,8,style=Regular”

Returns:

• [object] - $this

---

The actual classes only implement getters and setters for attributes inside $this.Drawable. Because of the way that i have to specify certain classes as return value of type [object] instead of their actual class type, IntelliSense is lost.

Usually getters and setters exist to restrict access to an attribute by denying direct access and omitting a getter or setter. Since i dont control anything inside $this.Drawable and all the attributes are public anyway, having ImPS getters and setters for this is pretty much useless.

However, having getters and setters means, that at least with setters, i can return an instance to whatever class is calling the setter. This means we can easily chain multiple methods instead of calling them one after another.

myInstance.myMethod1().myMethod2().myMethod3()

# instead of

myInstance.myMethod1()
myInstance.myMethod2()
myInstance.myMethod3()

I am thinking about removing the getters and setters entirely to make anyone use $this.Drawable instead. This would remove a lot of code. Not just that but if there is a need for a helper method, i can just add it to the Element/Panel instance (instead of this helper class) and it will have IntelliSense. I am still not sure about this. Would it make this module obsolete? - Comments are welcome