COMSOL 6.4 - New Functionality in the Application Builder

New Functionality in the Application Builder

Also see the Introduction to the Application Builder, Application Builder Reference Manual, and Application Programming Guide for more information.

General Improvements and Changes

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You can now record code directly to the window. A button has been added to the window. When clicked, changes to the model or application will be recorded directly to the input area of the window. This is useful, for example, if you want to find out how to change something programmatically in the model in order to then run it from the window directly. Otherwise, works the same as when recording to methods. You can stop the recording from the input toolbar or from the ribbon where you could previously stop method recording (in the Model Builder on the tab; in the Application Builder on the tab or the tab).

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The window now has a toolbar. It includes the following buttons:

: If a variable in the window is selected and it is part of the model, you can use this button to go to the definition of this variable in the model.

: Collapses the tree in the window. You can also open its menu to choose and .

: Expands all “header nodes” so that all variables are visible in the window. You can also open its menu to choose .

: Toggles full precision on and off for the variables in the window.

Note that the toolbar with only the button is available in version 6.3 update 1.

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When opening the context menu on a results node that corresponds to a variable in the window, there is a new option. This option opens the window and highlights the corresponding variable there. The option in the toolbar works in the same way, taking the currently selected node into account and highlighting that variable if possible. If the current selection does not correspond to a variable in the window, the window is opened as before without highlighting anything, and the branch in the tree table is expanded (if present).

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If you right-click on a shell variable in the window, a option now appears. This option removes the variable from the current Java Shell session.

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It is now possible to create multiple primitive declaration nodes of the same type in the same list for all types of declarations. You can group the declaration nodes if desired for additional structure of data declarations in an app.

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More properties are now available for ; that is, they get a green checkbox when this option is enabled. The improved data access support includes properties on the node as well as for properties under , , , , and .

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When method code prints to System.out or System.err, each completed line is sent to the window, in addition to where it was sent in 6.3 (for example, a console window if started from a Linux terminal). This output does not happen if the method is called from the window because in that case, the output already goes to the window like in version 6.3.

Improvements to the Form Editor

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The and form objects have a new option for in their settings called . When a user has added images to the image library, this option can be used to show the images in their original size.

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form objects with the checkbox selected now have an option to control if the combo box should try to find an item matching what you type in its text field. Text search is only available in the Windows client.

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It is now possible to change the color, top color, bottom color, and icon of the form object while an app is running. See Changing Color of Graphics Form Object below.

Improvements and Changes to the Method Editor and Application Language

Copying from Method Errors and Warnings Window

The table in the window now supports selecting multiple cells and copying the selected cells to the clipboard. It also includes an option to select all cells. and can be selected from the table context menu or using the standard keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+C and Ctrl+A, respectively).

Improved Copy as Code to Clipboard Functionality

The action on the menu previously referred to as is now called . A new action, based on report-generator code, that records code also for properties with their default values, called , has been added.

Toggle Folding Expansion

Right-click in the Method Editor and choose (or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+-) in the method to toggle all the expansion states of the code folds that are represented by minus signs or plus signs in the left margin of the Method Editor.

Changing Color of Graphics Form Object

It is now possible to change the color, top color, bottom color, and icon of the form object while an app is running. The syntax for changing this is the same as for other color and icon options. The color properties are called "background2d", "topBackground", and "bottomBackground". They can be set either from a string (such as "blue", "black", and so on) or from RGB values 0–255. The icon property is called "icon". Valid values are images defined in the > node in the application tree, or use an empty string for no icon. The default icon is called "logo_graphics.png".

Examples:

app.form("form1").formObject("graphics1").set("background2d", "blue");

app.form("form1").formObject("graphics1").set("topBackground", "black");

app.form("form1").formObject("graphics1").set("bottomBackground", "red");

app.form("form1").formObject("graphics1").setColor("background2d", 230, 236, 232);

app.form("form1").formObject("graphics1").set("icon", "compute_32.png");

Multiple and Grouped Declaration Nodes

Additions to the DeclarationGroup objects.

To retrieve a DeclarationGroup object containing entries of the "string1" string declaration node:

DeclarationGroup group = app.declaration().group("string1");

To retrieve a DeclarationGroup object containing entries of the "string1" string declaration node under the given form:

group = app.form("form1").declaration().group("string1");

To get the value of the "svar" declaration among the entries:

String value = group.get("svar").getString();

Iterate over the entries of the "integer1" Integer declarations node:

int i = 0;

for (Primitive entry: app.declaration().group("integer1")) {

entry.set(i++);

}

Additions to the DeclarationGroupList objects.

To get the names of all global primitive declaration nodes:

String[] names = app.declaration().group().names();

To get the names of the local primitive declaration nodes of a given form:

String[] names = app.form("form1").declaration().group().names();

New WriteFile Overloads for User-Specified Delimiters

Two new writeFile() overloads have been added to the application language to make it possible to save a string matrix with a user-specified delimiter character:

void writeFile(String file, String[][] value, char delimiter,
boolean append);

void writeFile(String file, String[][] value, char delimiter,
boolean append, boolean bom);

Exporting Materials

Materials and their data can be exported to the model XML file format using the following methods for global materials and materials under a component, respectively:

String[][] com.comsol.model.MaterialList.export(String filename, String[] materials)

String[][] com.comsol.model.ComponentMaterialList.export(String filename, String[] materials)