Nested States for Enums

[ASTDan]

Hello,

I am a user of Gmail and they came out with a great feature I think could be applied to State machines

Nested Labels

They use nested labels.  If you type in the following you can have a "Folder" Test/Init.

Using this concept I think you could easily add "folders" to your state machines.  You could group like states easily.  The case structure would recognize the "/" character and group and indent appropriately.

[altenbach]

If I understand you right, this has really nothing to do with case structures. What you want is a new type of enum with a built-in hierarchy.

(For case structures, we already have this possibly related idea.)

[ASTDan]

Yes the enum would have the hierarchy.  The hierarchy would also be be reflected in the case structure.  When you are trying to find a state it would be organized using a hierarchy.  The picture of the case statement shows how the individual case would look.  When you selected the drop down arrow on the case structure you would see the hierarchical list (no picture sorry).

[crelf]

We do that a lot, but use dot notation.  For example: main.Init, main.Close, test.Run, test.Close.  I'd warn against using "/" as that denotes a choice between the leader and follower in the English language.  Using "\" would be okay though.

[ASTDan]

I use a dot too!  I saw that Gmail was using "/" and thought they were on to something.  The character in my opinion doesn't matter.  I think it would be cool if the enum and case structure would indent based on that character.  Maybe the user could choose the character.

Also there probably needs to be a feature to turn the hierachy functionality on and off with the default being off. 

[jcarmody]

The CaseSelect plugin for the JKI Right-Click Framework looks similar to your picture.

[crelf]

     by jcarmody on 12-02-2010 05:30 PM

     The CaseSelect plugin for the JKI Right-Click Framework looks similar to your picture

Yeah - it's similar to some techniques first introducted in the old VIE LabVIEW Advanced Course.

[ASTDan]

I have seen the JKI state machine and I like the way they group their states.  I prefer using type def enums over strings.  I am proposing having a more native way to acomplish what the JKI state machine has.

[Jason_Harrigan]

There should be some way to group and organize states.