Hi,
i have used the ControlP5 library to create a textfield and buttons in my sketch and would like to translate the the text from the textfield into different languages depending on which button is pressed. In the controlEvent() method i am writing code for the different events,
but don't seem to be able to pass the textinput to the buttons. I looked at the documentation and previous posts on this library but still can't figure it out. Can anybody help on how to do this? Thanks




import controlP5.*;
import com.google.api.translate.Language;
import com.google.api.translate.Translate;
ControlP5 controlP5;
public int myColorBackground = 200;
Textfield myTextfield;


void setup()
{
 size(450,350);
 frameRate(25);
 background(myColorBackground);
 controlP5 = new ControlP5(this);

 controlP5.Button fre  = controlP5.addButton("FRE",20,360,40,20,20);
 fre.setColorBackground(0);
 fre.setId(1);
 fre.setColorActive(60);
 
 controlP5.Button ger  = controlP5.addButton("GER",0,400,40,20,20);
 ger.setColorBackground(0);
 ger.setId(2);
 ger.setColorActive(60);
 
 myTextfield = controlP5.addTextfield("texts",100,300,200,20);
 myTextfield.setFocus(true);
}

void draw() {
}


void controlEvent(ControlEvent theEvent)
{
 boolean textfieldeventhappened = false;
 println("got a control event from controller with id "+theEvent.controller().id());

//textfield
if( theEvent.controller().id() == -1)
{
 String lines = (myTextfield.getText());
 textfieldeventhappened = true;
   println(textfieldeventhappened);
}

//button
else if(( theEvent.controller().id() == 1) && ( textfieldeventhappened == true))
   {
     String inputtext = (myTextfield.getText());
     translateThis( inputtext);
   }
   
//button    
else if(( theEvent.controller().id() == 2) && ( textfieldeventhappened == true))
   {
         String language = "GERMAN";
         println(language);
   }  
}


void translateThis(String inputtext)
{
try
  {
    String translatedText = Translate.translate(inputtext, Language.ENGLISH, Language.FRENCH);
    println(translatedText);
  }
  catch (Exception ex)
  {
    ex.printStackTrace();
  }
}

Well the reason none of your methods are working is because right at the beginning of the controlEvent() method, you are assigning false to textfieldeventhappened. So whenever an event happens, textfieldeventhappened will always be false, no matter what, and none of your conditionals will be met.

I've found that when using controlP5, it's much easier to create custom methods for each event, rather than having a cluttered controlEvent() method. I'm not sure if you know how to do this already, but it may help. Here's how you would do it:

Code:

//you created a textfield called myTextfield
//you can set up a custom method like this:

public void myTextfield(String _theText){
     translateThis(_theText);
}
 

So that method above would fire every time that text field was submitted. So then to submit the text field, you just create a custom method for your button to submit the text field. Like this:

Code:

public void ger(int theValue){
     String language = "GERMAN";
     myTextfield.submit();
}
 

The submit() button is automatically assigned to your text field, so you can call that anywhere, and it will trigger your text field to submit itself, which will then trigger the method that we created above automatically.

I hope this helps. I struggled a lot with ControlP5 as well when I was first starting out, and this helped me organize my sketch a lot better and keep track of everything without a ton of conditionals stacking up in my controlEvent() method.