SelectEdit

From Emergent

The SelectEdit collects in one place selected members and methods from a wide range of different objects. This is very useful for creating "control panels" for the project, containing the key parameters to manipulate and buttons for running various aspects of the model. For many examples of this, see the projects in: http://grey.colorado.edu/CompCogNeuro/index.php/CECN1_Projects

SelectEdit objects live in the .edits of the Project. You can create them by doing New in that member using the context menu.

Contents 1 Basic Usage 2 Comparing Differences 3 Searching 4 Reference Information

Basic Usage

• The simplest way to add members to the select edit is to go to the object with the value you want to edit, and do context menu on the label of the field in the edit dialog for that object. For example, if you want to edit the "lrate" (learning rate) parameter of a ConSpec (connection specification), click on the ConSpec object, and then do right mouse button or Ctrl-mouse (on a Mac) on the lrate label. You will get a menu that says "Add to Select Edit" and "Remove From Select Edit" with sub-menus for the different select edit objects (NOTE: you must create a select edit first for this to be useful).
  • Note: you cannot just create new mbrs or meth items within the SelectEdit object itself -- you must create them from the "source" object.

• To add functions, use the SelectEdit menu at the top of the object's edit dialog. For example, to add the Program control functions (Init, Run, Step, Stop) to a SelectEdit, there is a "Select Ctrl Funs For Edit" menu item which will automatically add all of them. Or, you can use "Select Fun For Edit" to just add individual ones.

• To organize the items in your SelectEdit (move, group into functional groups, remove, etc), toggle open the select edit object in the left browser panel to reveal the mbrs and mths groups within it. Toggle these open and you will see each member field and method that has been added to the edit. You can just drag and drop or cut and paste these objects to organize them.
  • You can make a new Subgroup within each of these fields to group together related items. The name of the subgroup becomes a descriptive label in the select edit for members, and for methods it allows you to change how the methods are accessed, and you can organize them into Menu Buttons (as in the Wizard) and menus, in addition to the default of separate buttons.
  • The desc field in the mbrs and meths items provides the "tooltip" that shows up when the mouse hovers over the item in the select edit -- you can use this to provide informative tips for users of your project.
  • You can alter the label for the item to your liking.

• The Properties tab in the overall SelectEdit dialog allows you to change the name of the select edit, and its description (if you enter something here, it will show up at the top of the select edit dialog that users see), and to make it auto open when the project is opened, so that users will be able to access it directly and immediately.

Comparing Differences

In the Select Edit menu of every object is a Select For Edit Compare option -- this allows you to automatically populate a SelectEdit object with the members that differ between this object and the other object you select to compare it with. Note that the two objects must be of the same type. This can be very useful, for example when run on the specs between two different networks (which can be in different projects), to see which parameters are different.

Searching

You can also populate a SelectEdit by searching for a members by name using the Select For Edit Search function on every object's Select Edit menu.

Reference Information

• SelectEdit -- overall edit
• EditMbrItem -- controls members
• EditMthItem -- controls methods