Setting file paths via Bonsai GUI

[jbwallace123]

Hello,

I'm a new Bonsai user and am attempting to create a workflow that is easy for many people to use. I'd like to have a very simple text box pop up so that a user could set a filename in the beginning that is than inherited by "CsvWriter" and "VideoWriter". I have attempted to follow the instructions here but I have not had luck within my workflow (pictured below). Does anyone have any insight as to what I may be doing wrong?

I have attempted to have the subscribe subject at the beginning and of each connection (e.g. before Boolean ) but did not have success either.

Any help is appreciated it.

[banchan86]

Hello @jbwallace123! I thought your question would be a good chance to learn more the Bonsai.GUI package which is also new to me. I'm not sure if this is the best way to do it, but I think I achieved what you were looking for. I took inspiration from both https://github.com/orgs/bonsai-rx/discussions/2097 and https://github.com/orgs/bonsai-rx/discussions/2059. I am attaching the full workflow file at the end of this comment but I will just explain what I did (and others can chime in if there is a mistake somewhere).

This is how the GUI looks like

This sets up the GUI. The VisualizerMapping and TableLayout Panel nodes allow us to rearrange GUI elements together. For this example it's also important to note the behaviour of the TextBox operator, it issues a new element/notification whenever the text is changed. For that reason, we are interested in using only the last element (the final text) and use a BehaviourSubject that I name LastText to access the last element (more on that later). The OnClick node is a regular PublishSubject that issues a notification when the button is clicked.

*sidenote - I ran into a serious issue with editing text in the textbox which crashes Bonsai. I plan to investigate and raise as a bug/issue but as long as you just type out the name and not edit it, it will be fine. Adding an empty String operator to clear the externalized Text property of the TextBox at the start of every workflow run helps with that.

The next part is triggered by a SubscribeSubject that subscribes to the OnClick notification. The SelectMany encapsulates the experimental logic and honestly it's black magic to me 😆.

This shows the workflow for the CsvWriter part in the SelectMany (its almost the same for the VideoWriter). Everything in SelectMany is only triggered when OnClick issues a notification. I used a Timer here basically just to get the CsvWriter going but you can substitute in your own DigitalOutput logic (although I am not sure why you are delaying the Timestamps in that branch). In order to use the same FileName for the CsvWriter and VideoWriter you have to append the filetype suffix (.csv or .avi). The SubscribeSubject named LastText returns the last value emitted before subscription. We Zip it with the appropriate filetype suffix, and then use an ExpressionTransform to do a string concatenation which we then set to the externalized FileName for either the CsvWriter or VideoWriter.
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That's it basically, let me know if it works for you and if there are any issues! I have attached the workflow as a zip below.

#2059_final.zip