Adding default ports to subtrees

[ufrhaidar]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Want to use subtrees more often to reduce repeated logic and to better explain sections of code (clean/clear up trees and reduce repeated logic), but in most cases (depending on how many ports the nodes i want to place in a subtree have/use), it takes longer to create the port mappings than to just leave the logic as is.

Describe the solution you'd like
Having the ability to add default ports and values for subtrees. or another button similar to _autoremap that creates ports for all black bord variables used in subtree?

Describe alternatives you've considered
copy pasting prefilled tree. you need to know where it was used. not easy in more complicated trees.

or creating template trees that i can open on the side to copy paste from.

Additional context
Something similar to behaviors/containers in flexbe.

Would be nice to know if people are facing similar issue and what they are doing to deal with it.

[facontidavide]

this is already possible, checj this example

https://github.com/BehaviorTree/BehaviorTree.CPP/blob/master/examples/t14_subtree_model.cpp

[ufrhaidar]

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<root BTCPP_format="4">
  <BehaviorTree ID="ExampleSubtree">
    <Script code="output=input"/>
  </BehaviorTree>

  <!-- Description of Node Models (used by Groot) -->
  <TreeNodesModel/>

</root>

If I was to manually implement your example above in the subtree xml created by groot:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<root BTCPP_format="4">
  <BehaviorTree ID="ExampleSubtree">
    <Script code="output=input"/>
  </BehaviorTree>

  <!-- Description of Node Models (used by Groot) -->
  <TreeNodesModel>
    <SubTree ID="ExampleSubtree">
      <input_port name="input"/>
      <output_port name="output"/>
    </SubTree>
  </TreeNodesModel>

</root>

• if I load updated xml, the TreeNodesModel can be used as intended, but if i was to resave the subtree, the modified TreeNodesModel gets deleted by groot unless it is used by something else in that same xml file. (i assume groot deletes unused nodes from TreeNodesModel)

Am I using it wrong? I tend to have subtrees that can be shared by different projects saved in a separate xml, so I wouldn't always use the subtree in the same xml.

to get around this, I am adding an unused subtree that uses my subtree

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<root BTCPP_format="4">
  <BehaviorTree ID="ExampleSubtree">
    <Script code="output=input"/>
  </BehaviorTree>

  <BehaviorTree ID="_">
    <SubTree ID="ExampleSubtree"
             input=""
             output=""/>
  </BehaviorTree>

  <!-- Description of Node Models (used by Groot) -->
  <TreeNodesModel>
    <SubTree ID="ExampleSubtree">
      <input_port name="input"/>
      <output_port name="output"/>
    </SubTree>
  </TreeNodesModel>

</root>