Question

I need some opinions on what is the “ideal” design pattern for a general mouse
interaction.

Here the simplified problem. I have a small 3d program (QT and openGL) and
I use the mouse for interaction. Every interaction is normally not only a
single function call, it is mostly performed by up to 3 function calls (initiate, perform, finalize).
For example, camera rotation: here the initial function call will deliver the current first mouse position,
whereas the performing function calls will update the camera etc.

However, for only a couple of interactions, hardcoding these (inside MousePressEvent, MouseReleaseEvent MouseMoveEvent or MouseWheelEvent etc)
is not a big deal, but if I think about a more advanced program (e.g 20 or more interactions) then a proper design is needed.

Therefore, how would you design such a interactions inside QT.

I hope I made my problem clear enough, otherwise don’t bother complain 🙂

Thanks

Answer 1

I suggest using polymorphism and the factory method pattern. Here’s an example:

In my Qt program I have QGraphicsScenes and QGraphicsItems with mousePressEvent, mouseMoveEvent, and mouseReleaseEvent, which look like this:

void CustomItem::mousePressEvent(QGraphicsSceneMouseEvent *event)
{
  // call factory method, which returns a subclass depending on where click occurred
  dragHandler = DragHandler::createDragHandler(event /* and other relevant stuff */);
}

void CustomItem::mouseMoveEvent(QGraphicsSceneMouseEvent *event)
{
  dragHandler->onMouseMove(event);
}

void CustomItem::mouseReleaseEvent(QGraphicsSceneMouseEvent *event)
{
  dragHandler->onMouseRelease(event);
  delete dragHandler;
}

The idea in this particular case is that depending on where I click on CustomItem, mouse pressing, moving, and releasing will have different functionality. For example, if I click on the edge of the item, dragging will resize it, but if I click in the middle of the item, dragging will move it. DragHandler::onMouseMove and DragHandler::onMouseRelease are virtual functions that are reimplemented by subclasses to provide the specific functionality I want depending on where the mouse press occurred. There’s no need for DragHandler::onMousePress because that’s basically the constructor.

This is of course a rather specific example, and probably not exactly what you want, but it gives you an idea of how you can use polymorphism to clean up your mouse handling.