One of the most important elements of the class development cycle is ensuring that your class design adheres to the standards used by other classes in the Pandora Engine. This document is provided to assist you in creating new class structures so that your naming standards match up with the rest of the system. The type and description details in the table serve as indications only, and may be altered to fit your requirements if you believe it to be appropriate for your class design. Please make sure that if you do stray from these standards, you will need to provide an explanation of this in your documentation so that developers are not confused when creating software that uses your class.
Any field names that are not listed in the table may use a type and purpose of your own design. If you have any additions for the field table, please send your requests to devsupport@rocklyte.com.
Category | Name | Type | Description |
Files | Location | STRING | Refers to a file location, usually one that contains data that is relevant to the class type. |
Position | LONG | Must be supported in conjunction with the Seek action. The Position field reflects the current byte position for reading and writing to an object's data. | |
Src | STRING | This field is sometimes supported in conjunction with the Location field, as a synonym. We recommend that you only use it in classes that are designed for use in DML. | |
General | Flags | LONG | Optional flags are typically provided through the Flags field. |
Output | OBJECT | Classes that are capable of printing text information should do so by supporting the Output field. This works similarly to stdout in POSIX, but you are required to send information to the Output object through the data channel mechanism. | |
Size | LONG | Indicates the size of object data, in bytes. | |
Static | LONG | This field applies to classes that support object scripting. When set to TRUE, an object should stay in memory when a ClosingTag action is received. If set to FALSE, then the object should self-destruct when the ClosingTag action is received. | |
Usage | STRING | This read-only field is usually supported by command classes. When a program reads it, you should return a complete description of how the class should be used on the command line. | |
Visible | LONG | When an object is visible to the user, this field should be set to TRUE. In all other cases it should be set to FALSE to indicate that an object is invisible or hidden. | |
Graphics | AmtColours | LONG | Should reflect the total amount of colours represented in the graphical data of an object. |
Bitmap | OBJECT | Refers to a Bitmap object that contains graphical data. | |
BitsPerPixel | LONG | The amount of bits per pixel used in constructing an object's graphical data. | |
BytesPerPixel | LONG | The amount of bytes per pixel used in contructing an object's graphical data. | |
Colour | STRING | A string based colour value. Should accept colour values in the form of "#RRGGBB" for hexadecimal and "Red,Green,Blue" for decimal. | |
ColourRGB | *RGB | An RGB based colour value (struct RGB *). | |
Mask | STRING | A string based colour value. Should accept colour values in the form of "#RRGGBB" for hexadecimal and "Red,Green,Blue" for decimal. | |
MaskRGB | *RGB | An RGB based colour value (struct RGB *). | |
GUI | BottomLimit | FLOAT | Prevents an object from moving beyond a given point at the bottom of its drawable container. |
BottomMargin | FLOAT | The bottom margin of an object indicates the amount of whitespace that should be available at the bottom edge of its graphical area. | |
Height | FLOAT | The height of an object. | |
LeftLimit | FLOAT | Prevents an object from moving beyond a given point at the left edge of its drawable container. | |
LeftMargin | FLOAT | The left margin of an object indicates the amount of whitespace that should be available at the left edge of its graphical area. | |
MaxHeight | FLOAT | Limits an object's maximum height. This field is especially useful for preventing excessive resizing. | |
MaxWidth | FLOAT | Limits an object's maximum width. This field is especially useful for preventing excessive resizing. | |
MinHeight | FLOAT | Reflects an object's minimum height. Used to prevent an object's graphical height from shrinking too much. | |
MinWidth | FLOAT | Reflects an object's minimum width. Used to prevent an object's graphical width from shrinking too much. | |
RightLimit | FLOAT | Prevents an object from moving beyond a given point at the right edge of its drawable container. | |
RightMargin | FLOAT | The right margin of an object indicates the amount of whitespace that should be available at the right edge of its graphical area. | |
StickToBack | LONG | If set to TRUE, the object will stick to the back of its drawable container (behind all the other graphics). | |
StickToFront | LONG | If set to TRUE, the object will stick to the front of its drawable container (in front of all the other graphics). | |
Sticky | LONG | This field prevents an object from being moved with the Move action when it is set to TRUE. It is usually supported to prevent GUI objects from being moved by scroll bars. | |
TopLimit | FLOAT | Prevents an object from moving beyond a given point at the top edge of its drawable container. | |
TopMargin | FLOAT | The top margin of an object indicates the amount of whitespace that should be available at the top edge of its graphical area. | |
VisibleHeight | FLOAT | The visible height of an object. | |
VisibleWidth | FLOAT | The visible width of an object. | |
Width | FLOAT | The width of an object. | |
XCoord | FLOAT | An object's horizontal coordinate. | |
XOffset | FLOAT | An object's horizontal coordinate, offset from the right edge of its drawable container. | |
YCoord | FLOAT | An object's vertical coordinate. | |
YOffset | FLOAT | An object's vertical coordinate, offset from the bottom edge of its drawable container. |