################################
Tutorial (Settings and Controls)
################################

In the :doc:`previous section <tutorial-cont>` of our tutorial we
have just built a simple sampling widget. Let us now make this widget
a bit more useful, by allowing a user to set the proportion of data
instances to be retained in the sample. Say we want to design a widget
that looks something like this:

.. image:: images/dataSamplerBWidget.png


What we added is an Options box, with a spin entry box to set the
sample size, and a check box and button to commit (send out) any
change we made in setting. If the check box with "Commit data on
selection change" is checked, than any change in the sample size will
make the widget send out the sampled dataset. If datasets are large
(say of several thousands or more) instances, we may want to send out
the sample data only after we are done setting the sample size, hence
we left the commit check box unchecked and press "Commit" when we are
ready for it.

This is a very simple interface, but there is something more to
it. We want the settings (the sample size and the state of the commit
button) to be saved. That is, any change we made, we want to save it so
that the next time we open the widget the settings is there as we have left
it

..
   There is some complication to it, as widget can be part of an
   application, or part of some schema in the Canvas, and we would like
   to have the settings application- or schema-specific.


Widgets Settings
****************

Luckily, since we use the base class :class:`~Orange.widgets.widget.OWWidget`,
the settings will be handled just fine. We only need to tell which variables
we want to use for persistent settings.

..
   For Python inspired readers: these
   variables can store any complex object, as long as it is
   picklable.

In our widget, we will use two settings variables, and we declare this
in the widget class definition (after the `inputs`, `outputs` definitions).

.. literalinclude:: orange-demo/orangedemo/OWDataSamplerB.py
   :start-after: start-snippet-1
   :end-before: end-snippet-1


All settings have to specify their default value. When a widget is
created the widget's members are already restored and ready to use
in its `__init__` method.
The contents of the two variables (:obj:`self.proportion` and
:obj:`self.commitOnChange`) will be saved upon closing our widget.
In our widget, we won't be setting these variables directly,
but will instead use them in conjunction with GUI controls.


Controls and module `gui`
*************************

We will use the :mod:`Orange.widgets.gui` to create/define the gui.
With this library, the GUI definition part of the options box is a bit
dense but rather very short

.. literalinclude:: orange-demo/orangedemo/OWDataSamplerB.py
   :start-after: start-snippet-3
   :end-before: end-snippet-3


We are already familiar with the first part - the Info group
box. To make widget nicer, we put a separator between this and Options
box. After defining the option box, here is our first serious
:mod:`~Orange.widgets.gui` control: a :func:`Orange.widgets.gui.spin`.
The first parameter specifies its parent widget/layout, in this case
:obj:`self.optionsBox` (the resulting widget object will automatically
append itself to the parent's layout). The second (:obj:`self`) and
third (``'proportion'``) define the *property binding* for the spin box.
I.e. any change in the spin box control will automatically be propagated
to the :obj:`self.proportions` and vice versa - changing the value of
`self.proprotions` in the widget code by assignment
(e.g. ``self.proprotions = 30``) will update the spin box's state to match.

The rest of the spin box call gives some parameters for the
control (minimum and maximum value and the step size), tells about the
label which will be placed on the top, and tells it which functions to
call when the value in the spin box is changed. We need the first
callback to make a data sample and report in the Info box what is the
size of the sample, and a second callback to check if we can send this
data out. In :mod:`Orange.widgets.gui`, callbacks are either references
to functions, or a list with references, just like in our case.

With all of the above, the parameters for the call of
:func:`Orange.widgets.gui.checkBox` should be clear as well. Notice that
this and a call to :func:`Orange.widgets.gui.spin` do not need a parameter
which would tell the control the value for initialization: upon
construction, both controls will be set to the value that is
pertained in the associated setting variable.

That's it. Notice though that we have, as a default, disabled all
the controls in the Options box. This is because at the start of the
widget, there is no data to sample from. But this also means that when
process the input tokens, we should take care for enabling and
disabling. The data processing and token sending part of our widget
now is


.. literalinclude:: orange-demo/orangedemo/OWDataSamplerB.py
   :start-after: start-snippet-4
   :end-before: end-snippet-4


You can now also inspect the :download:`complete code <orange-demo/orangedemo/OWDataSamplerB.py>`
of this widget. To distinguish it with a widget we have developed in the
previous section, we have designed a special
:download:`icon <orange-demo/orangedemo/icons/DataSamplerB.svg>` for it.
If you wish to test this widget in the Orange Canvas, put its code in
the `orangedemo` directory we have created for the previous widget and try
it out using a schema with a File and Data Table widget.

.. image:: images/schemawithdatasamplerB.png

Well-behaved widgets remember their settings - the state of their
checkboxes and radio-buttons, the text in their line edits, the
selections in their combo boxes and similar.

Persisting defaults
*******************
When a widget is removed, its settings are stored to be used as defaults
for future instances of this widget.

Updated defaults are stored in user's profile. It's location depends
on the operating system:
(%APPDATA%\Orange\<version>\widgets on windows,
~/Library/Application\ Support/orange/<version>/widgets on macOS,
~/.local/share/Orange/<version>/widgets on linux)
Original default values can be restored by deleting files from this folder,
by running Orange from command line with `--clear-widget-settings` option,
or through Options/Reset Widget Settings menu action.

Schema-only settings
--------------------
Some settings have defaults that should not change. For instance, when using
a Paint Data widget, drawn points should be saved in a workflow, but a new
widget should always start with a blank page - modified value should not
be remembered.

This can be achieved by declaring a setting with a `schema_only` flag. Such
setting is saved with a workflow, but its default value never changes.

Context dependent settings
**************************

Context dependent settings are settings which depend on the widget's
input. For instance, the scatter plot widget contains settings that
specify the attributes for x and y axis, and the settings that
define the color, shape and size of the examples in the graph.

An even more complicated case is the widget for data
selection with which one can select the examples based on values of
certain attributes. Before applying the saved settings, these widgets
needs to check their compliance with the domain of the actual data
set. To be truly useful, context dependent settings needs to save a
setting configuration for each particular dataset used. That is, when
given a particular dataset, it has to select the saved settings that
is applicable and matches best currently used dataset.

Saving, loading and matching contexts is taken care of by context
handlers. Currently, there are only two classes of context handlers
implemented. The first one is the abstract :class:`ContextHandler`
and the second one is :class:`DomainContextHandler` in which the
context is defined by the dataset domain and where the settings
contain attribute names. The latter should cover most of your needs,
while for more complicated widgets you will need to derive a new
classes from it. There may even be some cases in which the context is
not defined by the domain, in which case the
:class:`ContextHandler` will be used as a base for your new
handler.

Contexts need to be declared, opened and closed. Opening and
closing usually takes place (in the opposite order) in the function
that handles the data signal. This is how it looks in the scatter plot
(the code is somewhat simplified for clarity).

.. code-block:: python

    @Input.data
    def set_data(self, data):
        self.closeContext()
        self.data = data
        self.graph.setData(data)

        self.initAttrValues()

        if data is not None:
            self.openContext(data.domain)

        self.updateGraph()
        self.sendSelections()

In general, the function should go like this:

* Do any clean-up you need, but without clearing any of the settings that need
  to be saved. Scatter plot needs none.
* Call ``self.closeContext()``; this ensures that all the context dependent
  settings (e.g. attribute names from the list boxes) are remembered.
* Initialize the widget state and set the controls to some defaults as
  if there were no context retrieving mechanism. Scatter plot does it by
  calling ``self.initAttrValues()`` which assigns the first two attributes to
  the x and y axis and the class attribute to the color. At this phase, you
  shouldn't call any functions that depend on the settings, such as drawing
  the graph.
* Call ``self.openContext(data.domain)`` (more about the arguments later).
  This will search for a suitable context and assign the controls new values
  if one is found. If there is no saved context that can be used, a new
  context is created and filled with the default values that were assigned
  at the previous point.
* Finally, adjust the widget according to the retrieved controls. Scatter plot
  now plots the graph by calling ``self.updateGraph()``.

When opening the context, we provide the arguments on which the context
depends. In case of :class:`DomainContextHandler`, which scatter plot uses, we
can give it a :class:`Orange.data.Domain`. Whether a saved context can be
reused is judged upon the presence of attributes in the domain.

If the widget is constructed appropriately (that is, if it strictly uses
:mod:`Orange.widgets.gui` controls instead of the Qt's), no other
administration is needed to switch the context.

Except for declaring the context settings, that is. Scatter plot has this in
its class definition

.. code-block:: python

    settingsHandler = DomainContextHandler()
    attr_x = ContextSetting("")
    attr_y = ContextSetting("")

    auto_send_selection = Setting(True)
    toolbar_selection = Setting(0)
    color_settings = Setting(None)
    selected_schema_index = Setting(0)


``settingsHandler = DomainContextHandler()`` declares that Scatter plot uses
:class:`DomainContextHandler`. The :obj:`attr_x` and :obj:`attr_y` are
declared as :class:`~Orange.widgets.settings.ContextSetting`.


Migrations
**********

At the beginning of this section of the tutorial, we created a widget with
a setting called proportion, which contains a value between 0 and 100. But
imagine that for some reason, we are not satisfied with the value any more
and decide that the setting should hold a value between 0 and 1.

We update the setting's default value, modify the appropriate code and we
are done. That is, until someone that has already used the old version of
the widget open the new one and the widget crashes. Remember, when the
widget is opened, it has the same settings that were used the last time.

Is there anything we can do, as settings are replaced with saved before
the __init__ function is called? There is! Migrations to the rescue.

Widget has a special attribute called `settings_version`. All widgets start
with a settings_version of 1. When incompatible changes are done to the
widget's settings, its settings_version should be increased. But increasing
the version by it self does not solve our problems. While the widget now
knows that it uses different settings, the old ones are still broken and
need to be updated before they can be used with the new widget. This can be
accomplished by reimplementing widget's methods `migrate_settings`
(for ordinary settings) and `migrate_context` (for context settings).
Both method are called with the old object and the version of the settings
stored with it.

If we bumped settings_version from 1 to 2 when we did the above mentioned
change, our migrate_settings method would look like this:

.. code-block:: python

    def migrate_settings(settings, version):
       if version < 2:
         if "proportion" in settings:
            settings["proportion"] = settings["proportion"] / 100

Your migration rules can be simple or complex, but try to avoid simply
forgetting the values, as settings are also used in saved workflows.
Imagine opening a complex workflow you have designed a year ago with the
new version of Orange and finding out that all the settings are back to
default. Not fun!

.. warning::

   If you change the format of an existing setting in a backwards-incompatible
   way, you will also want to *change the name* of that setting. Otherwise,
   older versions of Orange won't be able to load workflows with the new
   setting format.

There are two helper functions you can use.
:obj:`Orange.widget.settings.rename_settings(settings, old_name, new_name)`
does the obvious operation on `settings`, which can be either a dictionary
or a context, thus it can be called from `migrate_settings` or
`migrate_context`.

Another common operation may be upgrading your widget from storing variable
names (as `str`) to storing variables (instances of classes derived from
`Variable`). In a typical scenario, this happens when combo boxes are upgraded to
using models. Function
:obj:`Orange.widget.settings.migrate_str_to_variable(settings, names=None)`
makes the necessary changes to the settings listed in `names`. `names` can be
a list of setting names, a single string or `None`. In the latter case, all
settings that may refer to variables (that is two-elements tuples consisting
of a string and an int) are migrated.

What about situations in which some context settings become inapplicable due
to some changes in the widget? For instance, a widget that used to accept any
kind of variables is modified so that it requires a numeric variable?
Context with categorical variables will match and be reused ... and crash the
widget. In these (rare) cases, `migrate_context` must raise exception
:obj:`Orange.widget.settings.IncompatibleContext` and the context will be
removed.

So take some time, write the migrations and do not forget to bump the
`settings_version` when you do breaking changes.
