SWMM5 Delphi GUI Dnotes.pas Summary

 Below is an overview of Dnotes.pas, a Delphi unit from SWMM 5.2 that defines a dialog (TNotesEditorForm) for editing either:

1. A project’s Title/Notes text (the lines that appear as descriptive “header” text for the project), or
2. The Comment property of any individual SWMM object (e.g., a node, link, subcatchment, etc.).

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1. Purpose and Context

Many SWMM objects (and the project overall) can store descriptive notes or comments. This dialog provides a text-editing interface so users can:

• Edit and store multiline comments for a specific object.
• Modify the SWMM project’s Title/Notes (including an option to treat the title as a header in printed reports).

Because it’s used for two different but related tasks (object comments vs. project notes), some controls (like CheckHeader) may appear only for project-wide notes editing.

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2. Main Components: TNotesEditorForm

1. Memo1 (TMemo):
   • A multiline text box where the user types or views the text.
2. CheckHeader (TCheckBox):
   • Visible only when editing the project’s Title/Notes.
   • Toggled on/off to indicate whether the project’s Title lines should be used as a report header (TitleAsHeader).
3. OK and Cancel buttons:
   • Standard dialog acceptance or dismissal.
4. HasChanged (boolean):
   • Tracks whether the text was modified by the user (or if CheckHeader changed).

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3. Data Flow and Methods

3.1 Editing Comments for an Object

• SetComment(Title, S):

  1. Sets Caption := Title so the dialog’s top bar text might say something like “Comment for Node X”.
  2. Places the existing comment (S) into Memo1.Lines and resets the cursor to the start.

• GetComment(var S):

  1. Reads all lines from Memo1.Lines and combines them with CR (carriage return, #13) separators into the string S.
  2. Notes if the user typed anything by checking Memo1.Modified.

3.2 Editing the Project Title/Notes

• SetProjectNotes(Slist):

  1. Makes CheckHeader.Visible := True (so the user can choose if the first line is used as a header in reports).
  2. Copies the multiline text from Slist into Memo1.Lines.
  3. Moves the caret to the start.

• GetProjectNotes(Slist):

  1. Saves the user’s choice of CheckHeader.Checked into Uglobals.TitleAsHeader.
  2. Copies the lines from Memo1.Lines back into Slist.

3.3 Additional Details

• FormCreate:
  • CheckHeader.Visible := False; by default, since it’s only shown for project-level notes, not for object comments.
• CheckHeaderClick:
  • If the user toggles the checkbox, HasChanged := True;
• The text editor (Memo1) can handle multiple lines. If the user hits OK, the text is committed back to whichever storage is relevant (project notes or object comment).

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4. Typical Usage

1. Editing an object’s comment:

   1. The main application calls SetComment("Link Comment", linkCommentString).
   2. The user modifies text in Memo1.
   3. On OK, GetComment(linkCommentString) is called. The updated text is saved into the link object’s Comment property.

2. Editing the project’s Title/Notes:

   1. The main application calls SetProjectNotes(NotesList), passing a TStringList of lines.
   2. The user can check/uncheck CheckHeader to specify whether the first line is a “report header.”
   3. On OK, GetProjectNotes(NotesList) is called; the updated lines and header-setting are captured in the project data structures.

Because SWMM uses these free-text fields in many places (reports, user documentation, object definitions), Dnotes.pas is a straightforward but essential piece of the UI for effectively documenting models.