Experimenting with ControlStateMachine and Fluent interfaces

Posted by timvw on August 13, 2009 Leave a comment (1) Go to comments

A long time ago i read Build your own CAB series and recently i noticed that there is a wiki: Presentation Patterns Wiki! and it inspired me to experiment with state machines. Here are a couple of examples:

controlStateMachine = new ControlStateMachine<states>(this);

controlStateMachine.AfterEachStateChange()
 .Do(MakeRelevantButtonsVisible);

controlStateMachine.WhenStateChangesTo(States.RetrievingSubscriptionPeriod)
 .TheOnlyVisibleControlsAre(flowLayoutPanel1, datePicker1);

controlStateMachine.WhenStateChangesTo(States.RetrievingCustomerInformation)
 .MakeVisible(customerInput1)
 .Do(() => customerInput1.Dock = DockStyle.Fill);

controlStateMachine.WhenStateChangesTo(States.Ready)
 .MakeInvisible(customerInput1);

And here is another example:

wizardStateMachine = new WizardStateMachine<states>(controlStateMachine);

wizardStateMachine.InState(States.RetrievingSubscriptionPeriod)
 .OnCommand(WizardCommands.Next)
  .TransitionTo(States.RetrievingCustomerInformation);

wizardStateMachine.InState(States.RetrievingCustomerInformation)
 .OnCommand(WizardCommands.Back)
  .TransitionTo(States.RetrievingSubscriptionPeriod)
 .OnCommand(WizardCommands.Finish)
  .TransitionTo(States.Ready);

wizardStateMachine.InState(States.Ready)
 .OnCommand(WizardCommands.New)
  .Do(() => MessageBox.Show("Currently not supported"));

Stay tuned for future posts where i describe the problem space that have lead to this API.