Design pattern for mouse interaction

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

Accepted Answer

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.

Design pattern for mouse interaction

Solution

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