RiverWare 5.1 Workspace Qt3 QCanvas to Qt4 QGraphicsView Port -- Hit Refresh
Development Tasks / Estimate -- 1-4-2009

Development Tasks and Estimates (below)
 
Prototyping Work

For this work, being our first with Qt Graphics View classes, we did some initial experimental prototyping. A "Test" QGraphicsView-based Workspace Canvas was added to RiverWare. This implements SimObj QGraphicsItems (each with a type icon and name label) and supports these features: See also [See screenshots and info].

1. Workspace Canvas Configuration: Background Color, Text Color, and Font Selection.
2. SimObj QGraphicsItem (with Icon and Name Label) Creation from Sim workspace notifications.
3. SimObj QGraphicsItem Deletion, Renaming and Moving from SimObj notifications.
4. SimObj Creation and Deletion through a Context Menu operations.

The QGraphicsView and QGraphicsScene work can be used for production development -- in particular, item (1), above, and the integration of these classes with the RiverWare Workspace Dialog.

 
Design Work

See the proposed class designs (class diagrams) for the RiverWare QGraphicsView classes.

The initial Qt-based RiverWare Workspace GUI was implemented using the Qt3 "Canvas" managed-graphics classes. Graphical objects are represented by C++ classes managed within Qt with implementations defined in RiverWare subclasses. In Qt4 (starting with Qt version 4.2), the Qt3 "Canvas" classes were replaced with "Graphics View" classes having a very similar architecture.

The process of porting to Qt4 Graphics View classes is fairly straight forward. See [Qt] Porting to Graphics View.

• The QGraphicsView and QGraphicsScene subclass development will use the most natural application of the new graphics framework. Much of the "prototyping" work will be useable for production development. This includes "canvas property" editing and persistence (substantially developed) and spacial navigation (including zooming).
   
• The QGraphicsItem subclasses will be very direct reimplementations of the old QCanvasItem classes using the new framework. The prototype's QGraphicItem subclass (which uses primative drawing for both the icon and text) will be replaced by a "composite" approach (of Qt Icon and Text graphics items), much like the old QCanvasItem implementation.

 
Development Tasks and Estimates

It would be very reasonable to implement (and optionally, deliver) the Simulation View port before the Accounting View and Locator View ports. (The QGraphicsView Test prototype does, in fact, implement "canvases" of both architectures within a single RiverWare Workspace dialog).

(2) Accounting Workspace
Est. (Days)	Module	Task
0.5	AccountingScene	Minor adaptation of SimulationScene
3.0	SimObjRegionGfxItem and AccountGfxItem	Explicit geometry management of AccountGfxItems, including dragging AccountGfxItems to reorder them within a SimObjRegionGfxItem.
1.0	SupplyGfxItem	Supply Item; dynamic geometry maintenance; display (-group) attributes; tooltips.
1.0	TransferGfxItem	Transfer Supply Item; dynamic geometry maintenance; display (-group) attributes; tooltips.
1.5	AggAccountGfxItem	Aggregate Account Item, aggregation operations.
0.5	AccountingScene and SimObjGfxItem	Context Menu enhancment -- Workspace: Layout Network; SimObj Region Item; Add Account operations.
1.0	AccountGfxItem	Context Menu -- Account Item, including Add Supply (link) operations.
2.0	(all)	Integration / Testing / Documentation
Total Days: 10.5 (Accounting Workspace)

(3) Locator View
Est. (Days)	Module	Task
2.0	LocatorView	a QGraphicsView subclass, a view on a WorkspaceScene instance.

(4) Summary
Est. (Days)	Task
11.5	Simulation Workspace and Support Development
10.5	Accounting Workspace
2.0	LocatorView
Total Days: 24.0

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