Function that evaluates in notebook does not evaluate in CDF

Question

I am trying to access the values of a dynamic value outside function package. Within the function package, the function is defined under the Dynamic module option. There is an error with this. I cannot extract the value.

inputCreate[no_, user_values_] := (DynamicModule[{value = Table[0, {no}, {user_values}]},
   (If[(no > 0),
     ({Table[(With[{i = i, j = j},
          (Row[{Column[{MouseAppearance[
                EventHandler[
                 Style["\[FilledUpTriangle]", Bold, Black, {15, 15}, 
                  ShowStringCharacters -> 
                   False], {"MouseClicked" :> (value[[i, j]] = 
                    value[[i, j]] + 1)}],
                "LinkHand"],
               MouseAppearance[
                EventHandler[
                 Style["\[FilledDownTriangle]", Bold, Black, {15, 15},
                   ShowStringCharacters -> 
                   False], {"MouseClicked" :> (If[(value[[i, j]] <= 
                    0), (value[[i, j]] = 0), (value[[i, j]] = 
                    value[[i, j]] - 1)])}],
                "LinkHand"]},
              Spacings -> 0, Alignment -> Center, 
              Background -> RGBColor[0.65, 0.65, 0.65]], 
             Dynamic[If[(value[[i, j]] === Null), (value[[i, j]] = 0)];
              InputField[Dynamic[value[[i, j]]], Number, 
               ContinuousAction -> True, ImageSize -> {50, 20}, 
               Alignment -> Center]]}])]),
        {i, 1, no}, {j, 1, Length[Part[value, i]]}],
       Dynamic[value = If[value === Null, 0, value]]})
     ])])

When I deploy in CDF, this function works but I am unable to extract the value of myInput that I need to write into another file. Also, in the CDF, when I delete the zero and add click the uparrow, the value keeps incrementing + NUll whereas everytime I want to reset it to zero when the user deletes the values within the InputField.

So, just to extract the values, I implemented the same function with Module. However, within module, the initial value is not set to zero even though I have explicitly initialized it within the module.

Answer 1

I have mentioned in a comment that I think your question needs to be improved if you want more useful answers, mine is to a large extent based on guesses what you might actually want to achieve. I believe that you try to implement a gui element or widget that is to my knowledge known as a spinner or spinbox in other languages/frameworks. Then there is the complication that you want to use such a widgets to set the entries of an array. I think the following should solve the problems that you have mentioned in your question. None of these seems to me to have to do anything with CDF and the above solution should (and with my limited testing does) work within the free CDF player. Finally you mention that you "need to write into another file". It is honestly completely unclear to me what that should mean and is the only functionality I see that probably isn't possible with a free CDF document.

spinner widget

writing such a widget could actually be achieved with somewhat less effort as what I do present, but the following can also be used to set values in an array and implements some additional convenience, which makes things slightly more complicated. There is still a lot of possible improvement concerning robustness, style, flexibility etc.

ClearAll@spinner

spinner[Dynamic[var_]] := spinner[Dynamic[var, (var = #;) &]]

spinner[Dynamic[valexpr_, setfun_]] := (
   Row[{
     EventHandler[
      InputField[
       Dynamic[valexpr, If[# === Null, setfun[0], setfun[#]] &],
       Number,
       ContinuousAction -> True, ImageSize -> {50, 20}, 
       Alignment -> Center
       ],
      {
       "UpArrowKeyDown" :> setfun[Replace[valexpr + 1, {
           _?Negative :> 0,_?(Not[NumericQ[#]] &) :> 0,x_ :> Round[x]
           }]],
       "DownArrowKeyDown" :> setfun[Replace[valexpr - 1, {
           _?Negative :> 0,
           _?(Not[NumericQ[#]] &) :> 0,
           x_ :> Round[x]
           }]]
       }
      ],
     Column[{
       MouseAppearance[
        EventHandler[
         Style["\[FilledUpTriangle]", Bold, Black, {15, 15}, 
          ShowStringCharacters -> 
           False], {"MouseClicked" :> (setfun[Replace[valexpr + 1, {
               _?Negative :> 0,_?(Not[NumericQ[#]] &) :> 0,x_ :> Round[x]
               }]])}
         ],
        "LinkHand"
        ],
       MouseAppearance[
        EventHandler[
         Style["\[FilledDownTriangle]", Bold, Black, {15, 15}, 
          ShowStringCharacters -> False],
         {"MouseClicked" :> (setfun[Replace[valexpr - 1, {
               _?Negative :> 0,
               _?(Not[NumericQ[#]] &) :> 0,
               x_ :> Round[x]
               }]])}],
        "LinkHand"
        ]
       },
      Spacings -> 0, Alignment -> Center, 
      Background -> RGBColor[0.65, 0.65, 0.65]
      ]
     }]
   );

here is how you could use it:

{spinner[Dynamic[x]], Dynamic[x]}

arrays of contols

The second problem you are facing is that you have an array of values and want to have a single widget for any of them. That is a known problem addressed several times in other questions and there is a standard trick to solve it: use With to insert the evaluated indices into the unevaluated dynamic expression, as shown here:

DynamicModule[{values = {{1, 2, 3, 4}, {5, 6, 7, 8}}},
 Column[{
   Grid[Table[
     With[{r = r, c = c}, spinner[Dynamic[values[[r, c]]]]],
     {r, Length[values]},
     {c, Length[values[[1]]]}
     ]
    ],
   Dynamic[values]
   }]
 ]

And this is how that will look like: