Simplified data browser

Share icon

Hi, I am looking to implement a data browser in a panel as a means of selecting data to be displayed in a graph window. I know that this subject is touched upon fairly frequently so apologies for another post on the subject.

As a bit of background I am creating a package for loading (& processing) and graphing X-ray reflectivity data. I have decided to use two windows for the package; one is the XRR_loader panel which handles various input parameters for loading data and the other is the XRR_data_browser panel which is where I would like to have the data browser. The user switches between windows through a user-defined menu which just hides/shows the desired window. I have the loading panel sorted but it is with the data browser I am having trouble. The goal is to have the data browser with allowed non-contiguous multiple selections appending/removing curves to the embedded plot as the user selects.

My data structure is as follows (please see for example the attached picture); root:XRR_package - within this folder there is Experimental_Info (which contains global variables and strings) and a variety of experiment folders (SI7218-1, SI6928 etc. in the attached file). Within each experiment folder is a folder for each of the samples with all the waves which are made during processing (I could kill all these when finished but for the moment I would like to keep this) and a folder called All_data which contains the final processed data from each of the samples.

I would like to have the data browser show only the experiment folders i.e. SI7218-1, SI6298 etc. and the contents of the All_data folder within each of these experiment folders (if necessary I am happy for the flow to be exptFolder>All_data>ListOfWaves , I just want to hide all the other folders containing the bulk of processing).

I have had a play with the WaveSelectorWidget demo and it is great but there are a couple of issues which mean that I am inclined to write my own wave selector:
1) The creation of the root:Packages data folder - this is not much of a problem but I would like to keep everything as simple as possible without the generation of this extra folder.
2) again related to the first point - in having to use the packages DF, you have to use the selWave among other things rather than having user-defined waves in other locations.
3) The main point is the selected data folders - as mentioned above I would like to only have certain folders displayed which I guess would be possible with nameFilterProc.

Any advice on how best to go about this would be much appreciated - whether I should write my own package or just try and use the widget.

I would also like to have check boxes as the means of selection, there is talk of checkboxes in the documentation but am I right in thinking that this is a feature of the latest public beta release?

Many thanks,
Tom DataStructure.png (44.88 KB)
The Packages data folder is a feature of most WaveMetrics packages. It is, indeed, a bit of an annoyance, but it is better than having all the contents strewn around your experiment file. I think you will have difficulty with your own package avoiding such a folder. You need some place to put your bookkeeping data.

I think your comments about the WaveSelectorWidget are correct- it is aimed at being a general-purpose DataBrowser for control panels, but you have a nice but specialized layout of data that suits your project. It might be a nice enhancement to the WaveSelectorWidget to permit hiding folders.

You might look at the HierarchicalListWidget package. It's harder to find- look in Windows->Help Windows->WMProcedures Index.ihf for a pointer to it. It is like the WaveSelectorWidget in that it coerces a ListBox control into being a way to select data that has a hierarchical structure, but is not specifically aimed at waves and data folders. You can see it in action by selecting Misc->Packages->Window Browser.

Using HierarchicalListWidget would permit you to show just the data folder you want as top-level containers. You would be responsible for populating the data folders in the list, but that's the price of flexibility.
[quote]I would also like to have check boxes as the means of selection, there is talk of checkboxes in the documentation but am I right in thinking that this is a feature of the latest public beta release?[/quote]
Hm. You might be able to modify HierarchicalListWidget to do that, but it's not presently an option. ListBox controls can be made to show a checkbox in a list cell; the disclosure controls in a WaveSelectorWidget are a variant of the checkbox. Detecting a selected cell requires testing for different values in the SelWave than detecting a checked checkbox, so the HierarchicalListWidget doesn't do that for you as written.

Sounds like a big project- good luck with it!

John Weeks
WaveMetrics, Inc.
support@wavemetrics.com

January 25, 2012 at 09:08 am - Permalink