From One To Multiple Tiles

After modeling a single tile, let's create a grid of them. For the grid to be our game board, we need two features:

  1. A data model: This shall be an array where each element describes the tile data structure, such as the url of the image, whether the image shall be visible and if this tile has been solved. We modify the model from C++ code.
  2. A way of creating many instances of the tiles, with the above .slint markup code.

In Slint we can declare an array of structures using brackets, to create a model. We can use the for loop to create many instances of the same element. In .slint the for loop is declarative and automatically updates when the model changes. We instantiate all the different MemoryTile elements and place them on a grid based on their index with a little bit of spacing between the tiles.

First, we copy the tile data structure definition and paste it at top inside the memory.slint file:


// Added:
struct TileData {
    image: image,
    image_visible: bool,
    solved: bool,
}

component MemoryTile inherits Rectangle {

Next, we replace the export component MainWindow inherits Window { ... } section at the bottom of the memory.slint file with the following snippet:

export component MainWindow inherits Window {
    width: 326px;
    height: 326px;

    in property <[TileData]> memory_tiles: [
        { image: @image-url("icons/at.png") },
        { image: @image-url("icons/balance-scale.png") },
        { image: @image-url("icons/bicycle.png") },
        { image: @image-url("icons/bus.png") },
        { image: @image-url("icons/cloud.png") },
        { image: @image-url("icons/cogs.png") },
        { image: @image-url("icons/motorcycle.png") },
        { image: @image-url("icons/video.png") },
    ];
    for tile[i] in memory_tiles : MemoryTile {
        x: mod(i, 4) * 74px;
        y: floor(i / 4) * 74px;
        width: 64px;
        height: 64px;
        icon: tile.image;
        open_curtain: tile.image_visible || tile.solved;
        // propagate the solved status from the model to the tile
        solved: tile.solved;
        clicked => {
            tile.image_visible = !tile.image_visible;
        }
    }
}

The for tile[i] in memory_tiles: syntax declares a variable tile which contains the data of one element from the memory_tiles array, and a variable i which is the index of the tile. We use the i index to calculate the position of tile based on its row and column, using the modulo and integer division to create a 4 by 4 grid.

Running this gives us a window that shows 8 tiles, which can be opened individually.