Need Help with customizing Tools Module

[glsp-bot]

I am trying to customize tools module, however I am unable to figure out how should I access palette items added from server side. Please help me on this.

original thread by vibsid0986

[planger]

On initialization of the tool palette, the client sends a RequestContextAction with the context ToolPalette.ID to the server. The items responded by the server are then shown in the palette. The client code is here:
https://github.com/eclipse-glsp/glsp-client/blob/884f860bf2732ca9551ab6ff34647c249c224262/packages/client/src/features/tool-palette/tool-palette.ts#L309
So the retrieved items sent by the server are stored in the field this.paletteItems of the ToolPalette instance, which itself is a UI extension.

[tortmayr]

Note: You don't have to reimplement the entire toolPaletteModule if you want to customize the palette. You can simply rebind the ToolPalette to your custom implementation like this:

```rebind(ToolPalette).to(MyCustomToolPalette).inSingletonScope();```

[glsp-bot]

[vibsid0986]

https://spectrum.imgix.net/threads/06f4f607-f328-4fea-a727-74f8d4481bcf/b47780b1-846e-400b-b2b1-be76367d995d-SS.PNG?expires=1629331200000&ixlib=js-1.3.0&s=023327a992b02d07c8451c9588693d34

[glsp-bot]

[vibsid0986]

@planger(planger) and @tortmayr(tortmayr) thanks for replying. Can you help me with what is the method in the attached SS is doing. Is it triggering node creation when I click on a palette item?

[planger]

This method returns a function that is registered as a mouse listener. The mouse listener reacts to the mouse event and tests whether the editor is in readonly mode. If it isn't, it dispatches the action of the respective tool palette item via the action dispatcher. The action dispatcher will then look up the registered handlers and invoke them with the actions.
After that, the tool palette sets the UI button as active and puts focus on it.

[glsp-bot]

[vibsid0986]

@planger(planger), thanks for quick response. Understood!!

[vibsid0986-zz]

@planger(planger) can you help me with one more small thing, if I want to pass some arguments from client to server, then which file should I configure for that?

[planger]

By default, the tool palette just dispatches the actions of the respective tool item (see actions in LabeledAction which is the super class of PaletteItem). So either the server already adds arguments to those actions in the first place, so they would be sent back to the server once applied, or your custom tool palette would have to overwrite this part in the tool palette to add some additional arguments to the actions that are being dispatched by this item. However, I'm not sure this would be a nice design as it would require the tool palette to understand the actual action behind the palette item.

A common pattern, that is better in most cases imho, is that the palette item just enables a tool, and the tool itself then sends an action, where it can pass arbitrary arguments. See e.g. how this is done with e.g. the node creation tool:
https://github.com/eclipse-glsp/glsp-client/blob/master/packages/client/src/features/tools/node-creation-tool.ts
The tool palette item just enables this tool for a specific element type. The tool then eventually sends the creation action, which additional arguments:
https://github.com/eclipse-glsp/glsp-client/blob/9793bf3179a08b8808e9ba0c76adbe413bbba97b/packages/client/src/features/tools/node-creation-tool.ts#L104

[vibsid0986-zz]

@planger, Thanks for your quick response. I would be going with the second approach that you have suggested, however here also we do need to pre-configure our arguments from server, could you tell me how should I change the arguments in this.triggerAction.args ??

[planger]

You'd have to overwrite (rebind) the default tool palette item provider on the server. By default it derives the tool palette from the registered operation handlers for creating nodes and edges.