Problem using UIStatic

[philcooling]

I'm probably missing something fundamental but I'm having problems using UIStatic to display some information in a plugin I'm developing...

This is the relevant portion of my code:

Code:

private UiStatic statusInfoText;

        protected override void initialise()
        {
            string skinFileName = getSkinSubdirectory() + "\\skin.xml";             skinHelper2 = new SkinHelper2(skinFileName);

            Hashtable args = new Hashtable();
            args["@info"] = "Hello World";
            statusInfoText = new UiStatic(skinHelper2, "StatusInfo", args);

            logMessage("initialise()", "called");
            base.initialise();
        }


        public override ArrayList GetRenderList()
        {
            logMessage("GetRenderList()", "started");
            renderList.AddRange(statusInfoText.GetRenderList());
            logMessage("GetRenderList()", "called");
            return base.GetRenderList();
        }

I have a CompositeImage tag in my skin.xml file for StatusInfo:

Code:

<CompositeImage name="StatusInfo" size="60,4.5">
      <DrawText text="@info" loc="0,0" size="95,95" textStyle="GeneralTextStyle"
align="Left"/>
    </CompositeImage>

The error I'm getting is with the line:

Code:

renderList.AddRange(statusInfoText.GetRenderList());

and the Logs show:

Code:

2010-02-10 10:11:32.390    VERBOSE    [1]    UITesting: GetRenderList() - started
2010-02-10 10:11:32.515    ERROR    [1]    Unexpected error: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
   at MyPlugin.UITesting.GetRenderList()
   at GBPVRX2.MenuTask.x9006c1ed9ccb79de.GetRenderList()
   at GBPVRX2.x0061b801bdf12d35.xdb012c437aec4a40(Boolean xd23bf32f3b17e3be)
   at GBPVRX2.xb979ad394703258e.xfb409e85bd292293(String[] xf18a926310372520)

What am I doing wrong?? I'm prepared to be embarrassed by a simple mistake!

[sub]

Does you log message in the initialise() function end up in the log? (ie, so we know that statusInfoText isnt null)

[philcooling]

Yeah - it does log the "initialise() called" entry

[sub]

Ah - I'm guessing you're not allocating renderList?

[McBainUK]

Do you have Placement tag in the skin file?

eg <Placement name="StatusInfo" loc="3.5,60" />

[mvallevand]

For all my UiStatics I use .SetArgs to set it up ie.

staticInfoText.SetArgs(args);

Martin

[philcooling]

Ah - I'm guessing you're not allocating renderList?

Good spot - no I hadn't! Whoops!

Do you have Placement tag in the skin file?

eg <Placement name="StatusInfo" loc="3.5,60" />

Yes already I have.

OK - having allocated renderList the plugin no longer crashes at startup but my Text doesn't appear at all. The skin file looks good - I know it's case-sensitive so I've checked (and double-checked) the names etc. but can't spot what's wrong - I've been staring at my code for so long I'm starting to go cross-eyed! Maybe someone else can see what I'm not!

[McBainUK]

Can you post the complete file. Snippets can be hard to deal with.

[philcooling]

I've gone back to first principles and re-downloaded Sub's "Hello World" sample plugin, adding in my "StatusInfo" code and still get nothing. I've attached the code & skin.xml file in the zip file in the hope this will help!

[sub]

I havnt tried your code here, but you should really be allocating the render list each time GetRenderList is called:

Code:

public override ArrayList GetRenderList()
        {
            renderList = new ArrayList();
            renderList.Add(statusInfoText.GetRenderList());
            logMessage("GetRenderList()", "called");
            return base.GetRenderList();
        }