GUI variable best practices

[kor]

I use the following : http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/scite/UDFs/UDF_Standards.htm

to help me follow best practices for how I name my variables.

But I'm not sure how some of those applies to GUI's.

For instance, the var for the GUICreate function. Is that a window handle or maybe a variant?

For things like GUICtrlCreateInput would that be considered a string variable?

Just wondering what a lot of you follow for how you classify different GUI elements to know which category to apply them to for variable naming.

[Melba23]

kor,

GUICreate returns a handle, all other controls created with the native functions (GUICtrlCreate*) return a ControlID. UDF created controls return handles.

There is a new page under construction concerning variable names - you can see the current version here. But remember this is not yet "approved" and would only be strictly applied to those UDFs installed with AutoIt. However, I would encourage you to adopt these standards (or something very similar) to your own coding.

M23

[acidman]

Basically I think the best way for variable management is to use the variable returned from Guictrlcreate; when you need to get text from an input or read the text of a lable and so forth... when it comes to data reading/writing functions the best method i've found so far is to give it a general name and for different functions different nameandnumber E.g.

#include <ButtonConstants.au3>
#include <EditConstants.au3>
#include <GUIConstantsEx.au3>
#include <WindowsConstants.au3>
#Region ### START Koda GUI section ### Form=
Opt("GUIOnEventMode", 1)
$Form1 = GUICreate("Form1", 161, 66, 192, 124)
$Input1 = GUICtrlCreateInput("Input1", 16, 8, 121, 21)
$Button1 = GUICtrlCreateButton("Save", 16, 32, 123, 25)
GUISetOnEvent(-1, "ButtonSave")
GUISetState(@SW_SHOW)
#EndRegion ### END Koda GUI section ###
Func ButtonSave()
$read1 =Guictrlread($input1, 0)
IniWrite(@scriptdir & "TestSaveinfoInifiletest.ini", "Student Info", "test", $read1)
Endfunc

While 1
WEnd

Unless you start using mathematical function then I would declare A variable first

[Melba23]

ac1dm4nner,

If your scheme works for you then use it by all means. But I would suggest that using expressive function and variable names is better as then you do not have to remember what they are later in the script. Look in some of my UDFs to see what I mean.

And you can make these names as long as you like - SciTE helps by suggesting possible completion options as you begin typing so you do not have to type the whole name each time. And as an added bonus, if you then use Obfuscator with the /OM (Obfuscate Minimum) option, all these long names are replaced by short 2/3 character aliases which reduces the size of the exe and even makes it run faster. So you cannot really lose!

M23

[guinness]

ac1dm4nner,

kor was referring to variable naming practices not when to use variables, it's pretty self explanatory that when you need to interact with a Control/Handle that you would assign it a variable

I use Mat's UDF-Spec page that Melba23 referenced in the second post albeit I don't use $id** for native AutoIt controls because I use $i, as an integer is returned anyway, plus I'm just stuck in my old ways I suppose.

[acidman]

Ah thanks for the tips Guys My script is getting pretty huge and at some stages it runs slow... Thanks anyhow.

[BrewManNH]

I use Mat's UDF-Spec page that Melba23 referenced in the second post albeit I don't use $id** for native AutoIt controls because I use $i, as an integer is returned anyway, plus I'm just stuck in my old ways I suppose.

I think that's acceptable, as none of the current standard UDFs use $id** for any control IDs either.