Chapter 2: iTool System Architecture 33
iTool Developer’s Guide iTool Object Hierarchy
iTool Objects
Individual iTool tool objects contain all objects that are directly associated with a
particular instance of a particular iTool. Any number of tool objects can exist; their
unique identifiers are found in the /TOOLS container of the iTools system object.
As an iTool developer, you will use both the tool’s object reference and its object
identifier inside your code.
If you are using command-line style procedures and functions to control an existing
iTool from non-iTools code, you can retrieve the tool object identifier and object
reference using the ITGETCURRENT routine.
iTool-Level Hierarchy
Each individual iTool (held in the /TOOLS container of the system object) has a sub-
hierarchy of tool-level containers. For example, every iTool has a container named
OPERATIONS containing objects that affect data. An operation named MyOperation
registered for an iTool named MyTool has two possible object identifiers:
/TOOLS/MYTOOL/OPERATIONS/MYOPERATION
and
OPERATIONS/MYOPERATION
The first identifier is fully qualified; the second is relative to the MyTool object.
The object identifier hierarchy of each individual iTool includes the following
containers:
FILE READERS
FILE WRITERS
MANIPULATORS
OPERATIONS
TOOLBARS
WINDOW
WINDOW/VIEW
WINDOW/VIEW/VISUALIZATION LAYER
WINDOW/VIEW/VISUALIZATION LAYER/DATA SPACE
WINDOW/VIEW/VISUALIZATION LAYER/DATA SPACE/VISUALIZATION
WINDOW/VIEW/ANNOTATION LAYER
WINDOW/VIEW/ANNOTATION LAYER/ANNOTATION
FILE READERS
A file reader is an iTool component object that contains the information necessary to
open a file and read its data into the iTools data manager. The FILE READERS
container holds the object descriptors of file readers registered with the individual
