Re: object parenting?

[Lars Clausen <lrclause cs uiuc edu>]

On Mon, 09 Jun 2003, Vadim Berezniker wrote:
> Will it be possible in the future (or maybe even now) to parent an
> object?
>
> That is creating objects that are not children of the diagram, but
> children of another object.
>
> I was thinking that would help allow more specific uses of a certain
> objects, while keeping everything relatively generic.
>
> For example database modeling.
> You could have a Database object, and then inside you could create
> Table objects, View objects, etc. Since the other objects would be
> children of the Database object, the Database object could iterate
> over its children   (seems possible to do) and act based on that. Then
> you could have a Database object that can produce SQL, create
> databases automatically, etc without need for external tools.

It's definiely an interesting idea, and similar things have been mentioned
before:  An object thatyou can drop other objects into and open/close to
hide/display those other objects.

The Group "object" does that at the moment.  The reason I quote it is that
it's not really a full-grown object, but more of a hack -- there are IIRC
little special cases for it scattered around the code.  It also adds some
problems with iterating over objects -- e.g. should 'Select Same Type'
select objects inside other objects?

It's not something that I think would be easy rightnow -- there isn't that
kind of drag and drop support, for instance.  But it would be immensely
useful. 

-Lars

-- 
Lars Clausen (http://shasta.cs.uiuc.edu/~lrclause)| HÃrdgrim of Numenor
"I do not agree with a word that you say, but I   |----------------------------
will defend to the death your right to say it."   | Where are we going, and
    --Evelyn Beatrice Hall paraphrasing Voltaire  | what's with the handbasket?