ConfigFactory 0.1.2-alpha

Config Factory

Generic library for creating extensible config arrangements to be used with a UI builder

Table of Contents

• Config Factory
  • Table of Contents
• Usage
  • How it works
  • Creating a Config Module
    • Defining properties
  • Building the Config Module for the Frontend
  • Custom Control Builders
• Avalonia Demo
• Install
  • NuGet
  • Git Submodule

Usage

ConfigFactory is designed to be a modular configuration manager that can be paired with a UI builder to construct a user interface to edit the properties. This allows for a clean configuration setup without manually creating a UI page for each property in your config module (settings model).

How it works

There are two main libraries required to use ConfigFactory, the core library and the UI framework-specific library.

The core library is a lightweight library with the vanilla configuration attributes and IConfigModule interface. The IConfigModule is the signature required by the front end to build a user interface. The library also comes with a ConfigModule<T> helper type which implements the IConfigModule interface using a simple json IO method to read and write the config module.

The front-end library contains code specific to a UI framework to generate the user interface. These libraries will use their documentation for specific usage, in most cases, however, it is simply a matter of using their ConfigPage view in your application.

There is also the option to create a custom frontend by implementing a view for the ConfigPageModel (see ...).

Creating a Config Module

First and foremost, add the ConfigFactory.Core library to your backend project library.

Then, create a new partial class and implement the IConfigModule or ConfigModule<T> where T is the class (recommended):

public partial class SomeConfig : ConfigModule<SomeConfig>
{

}

Defining properties

There are of course many ways to define the properties, but by far the easiest and safest way is by using the CommunityToolkit.Mvvm ObservableProperty attribute to source-generate the INotifyOfPropertyChanged update methods.

[ObservableProperty]
private string _someProperty = string.Empty;

This will generate the observable SomeProperty when the library compiles. Learn more about the ObservableProperty attribute on the Microsoft docs.

The next step is to add the Config attribute to the property, this can be done using the property keyword.

[ObservableProperty]
[property: Config(
    Header = "Some property",
    Description = "Extended description of some property")]
private string _someProperty = string.Empty;

You can also customize the Category (defaults to General) and Group (defaults to Common) of the property as well.

[ObservableProperty]
[property: Config(
    Header = "Some property",
    Description = "Extended description of some property",
    Category = "Some category",
    Group = "Some group")]
private string _someProperty = string.Empty;

You should be left with a class similar to the following:

public partial class SomeConfig : ConfigModule<SomeConfig>
{
    [ObservableProperty]
    [property: Config(
        Header = "Some property",
        Description = "Extended description of some property",
        Category = "Some category",
        Group = "Some group")]
    private string _someProperty = string.Empty;
}

Property Validation

Along with creating properties, you can also set custom validations for them.

When using the ObservableProperty attribute, implement the partial OnPropertyNameChanged function to register a custom validation.

partial void OnSomePropertyChanged(string value)
{
    SetValidation(() => SomeProperty, value => {
        return value is "Some Proper Value";
    });
}

*(In order to achieve live validation, this function must be called in the OnChanged function/event of the property.)

Building the Config Module for the Frontend

Building a config module is a simple as calling the static function ConfigFactory.Build<T>() where T implements ConfigModule<T>, or ConfigFactory.Build(IConfigModule module) with other IConfigModule implementations.

This will return a ConfigPageModel which is used as the DataContext for any UI framework-specific library.

Alternatively, if the ConfigPageModel/DataContext is already constructed by the view, you can use the extension function ConfigPageModel.Append<T>() to inject your ConfigModule into the ConfigPageModel at runtime.

Custom Control Builders

Custom control builders allow you to inject a control stack specific to your own property types.

For example, if you have a custom record type that contains two text values, you can create a custom control builder to render two text boxes on the setting page.

public partial class SomeObject : ObservableObject
{
    [ObservableProperty]
    private string _name = string.Empty;

    [ObservableProperty]
    private string _description = string.Empty;
}

public partial class SomeConfig : ConfigModule<SomeConfig>
{
    [ObservableProperty]
    [property: Config(
        Header = "Some property",
        Description = "Extended description of some property",
        Category = "Some category",
        Group = "Some group")]
    private SomeObject _someProperty = new(string.Empty, string.Empty);
}

public class SomeObjectControlBuilder : ControlBuilder<SomeObjectControlBuilder>
{
    public override object? Build(IConfigModule context, PropertyInfo propertyInfo)
    {
        return new StackPanel {
            DataContext = context,
            Orientation = Orientation.Horizontal,
            Spacing = 5,
            Children = {
                new TextBox {
                    VerticalAlignment = VerticalAlignment.Top,
                    [!TextBox.TextProperty] = new Binding(propertyInfo.Name + ".Name")
                },
                new TextBox {
                    VerticalAlignment = VerticalAlignment.Top,
                    [!TextBox.TextProperty] = new Binding(propertyInfo.Name + ".Description")
                }
            }
        };
    }

    public override bool IsValid(object? value)
    {
        return value is SomeObject;
    }
}

(The last code snippet is specific to the Avalonia UI framework)

Avalonia Demo

Check out the demo application for a complete implementation.

Install

Install with NuGet or add the source code as a git submodule.

NuGet

# ViewModel interface package (custom UI implementation)
Install-Package ConfigFactory

# Interface package (for project library)
Install-Package ConfigFactory.Core

# Avalonia UI package
Install-Package ConfigFactory.Avalonia

Git Submodule

git submodule add "https://github.com/ArchLeaders/ConfigFactory.git" "lib/ConfigFactory"

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