320 Chapter 14: Creating a User Interface Panel
Registering a UI Panel iTool Developer’s Guide
Registering a UI Panel
User interface panels are registered with the iTool system using the ITREGISTER
procedure. Once a UI panel has been registered, it will be displayed for any iTool
whose TYPE property matches the string specified via the TYPES keyword when
registering the panel. Similarly, if an iTool displays a visualization whose TYPE
property matches the string specified via the TYPES keyword when registering the
panel, the panel will be displayed for that iTool.
Registering the Panel in the iTool Launch Routine
In most cases, you will register your user interface panel in an iTool’s launch routine,
with a statement like:
ITREGISTER,
panelName
,
panelCode
, TYPES =
panelType
, /UI_PANEL
where panelName is a string containing the human-readable name of your user
interface panel, panelCode is a string containing the name of the IDL procedure that
creates the user interface panel, and panelType is a string that identifies the type of
iTool or visualization for which the panel should be displayed. The UI_PANEL
keyword must be present in order to register a user interface panel using the
ITREGISTER procedure.
See “ITREGISTER” (IDL Reference Guide) for additional details.
About the TYPE property
To display a user interface panel for a given iTool, you will not only need to register
the panel in that iTool’s launch routine, but also specify a matching type when
initializing the iTool itself. The iTool system will display a registered panel in an
iTool whose TYPE property contains a string that matches the string specified via the
TYPES keyword when registering the panel.
To set the TYPE property of an iTool use a statement like this in the iTool’s Init
method:
self->IDLitToolbase::Init(_EXTRA = _extra, TYPE =
panelType
)
where panelType is a string that matches the string used as the value of the TYPES
keyword to ITREGISTER.
Similarly, the iTool system will display a registered panel when an iTool displays a
visualization whose TYPE property contains a string that matches the string specified
via the TYPES keyword when registering the panel.
