.. This file is part of Sympathy for Data.
.. Copyright (c) 2020 Combine Control Systems AB
..
.. Sympathy for Data is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
.. it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
.. the Free Software Foundation, version 3 of the License.
..
.. Sympathy for Data is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
.. but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
.. MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
.. GNU General Public License for more details.
..
.. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
.. along with Sympathy for Data.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

.. _`node_config`:


Node configuration
===================

The node configuration view is a window that is shown after right-clicking on a
:ref:`node <node_section>` and choosing configure.

Nodes normally have 2 main sections: View and Buttons - and sometimes a third,
message area which can appear on top.


.. _`node_config_message_area`:

Message area
-------------

The message at the top of the window has a menu which can be used to choose
how often it should be shown. Access it by right-clicking on a message that is
shown and choose an appropriate setting, for example, show always or hide
always. The setting can also be set globally, for all nodes using the the area.
See *Preferences* -> *Node Configuration* -> *Show message area*.

The message area is initially just high enough to show one row of text and it
compacts the text, by replacing newlines and whitespace, to fit as much as
possible. An indicator will be shown when there is too much text to fit, which
can be clicked to show a tooltip with the full text.

The message area can be resized by dragging the splitter handle just
bellow. When it is made high enough to show at least two rows, the view switches
from compact to regular display, which shows the full text (possibly with
scrollbars).

View
----

The main node view, it is specific to each node and might be generated
from the nodes parameters or a custom written GUI.


Buttons
-------

Nodes normally have 3 buttons: Help, Cancel and OK - and sometimes a fourth,
Preview button.


OK and Cancel
^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Pressing OK accepts (saves) the current configuration and closes the window.
Pressing Cancel rejects (discards) the current configuration and closes the
window unless edits have been made and the setting to confirm cancel on node
configurations is active; in that case, you will get an extra confirm dialog.

Accepting the configuration can also be done by pressing Ctrl+Enter; rejecting
by pressing Escape or by other means closing the window. Using the keyboard
shortcuts requires that dialog is receiving keyboard input and is not possible
when currently editing in some components.


Help
^^^^

Pressing help opens the external documentation for the configured node.


Preview
^^^^^^^

Some nodes offer the ability to preview the output by toggling the *Preview* button.
Toggling it will show an embedded data viewer which updates when the configuration
changes.