Sheldon

Paul Stovell

Paul Stovell

— 1 min read
This is an old post and doesn't necessarily reflect my current thinking on a topic, and some links or images may not work. The text is preserved here for posterity.

Sheldon is a WPF command line control, and code to integrate it with IronPython. It's designed as a sample that demonstrates how a WPF application might be made scriptable:

A screenshot of Sheldon

This sample was created to pitch an idea to a client about enabling a macro system in their application. Users might be able to make use of functions like OpenAccount("ACME"), ExecuteJob("SalesForecast2009"), and so on. Using the Command Pattern, commands could be written to an Output window in the application while the user uses the UI - that could be used as a learning tool for learning the command line.

The demo application shows how object models can be shared between your application and scripting environment. In C#, I set up an AutomationContext, which is made available to IronPython:

public class AutomationContext
{
    public ApplicationDefinition Application { get; set; }
    public IScriptingContext ScriptingContext { get; set; }

    public void Exit()
    {
        Environment.Exit(0);
    }
}

Then in IronPython, I create a friendly "API" that users can consume:

def GetWindow(name):
    return automation_context.Application.MainWindow
def Clear():
    automation_context.ScriptingContext.Clear()
def Exit():
    automation_context.Exit()

The ScriptingContext is an object that manages the execution and rendering of scripts, which the command line control can hook into. Multiple controls can talk to a single scripting context - here's a custom shell (I simply overrode the style and control template of the Shell control):

A custom shell style and template

You can download the code here:

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