How to "translate" interdependent object states in code?

Posted by Earl Grey on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by Earl Grey
Published on 2012-04-02T12:47:49Z Indexed on 2012/04/02 17:40 UTC
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I have the following problem. My UI interace contains several buttons, labels, and other visual information. I am able to describe every possible workflow scenario that should be be allowed on that UI. That means I can describe it like this - when button A is pressed, the following should follow ->

In the case of that A button, there are three independent factors that influence the possible result when pushing the A button. The state of the session (blank, single, multi, multi special), the actual work that is being done by the system at the moment of pressing the A button (nothing was happening, work was being done, work was paused) and a separate UI element that has two states (on , off)..This gives me a 3 dimensional cube with 24 possible outcomes.

I could write code for this using if cycles, switch cycles etc....but the problem is, I have another 7 buttons on that ui, I can enter this UI from different states..some buttons change the state, some change parameters... To sum up, the combinations are mindbogling and I am not able come up with a methodology that scales and is systematically reliable. I am able to describe EVERY workflow with words, I am sure my description is complete and without logical errors. But I am not able to translate that into code. I was trying to draw flowcharts but it soon became visually too complicated due to too many if "emafors". Can you advice how to proceeed?

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