• Overview
• Creating Child Windows
• Using SAT/DL Commands With Child Windows
• Using The Default Window Facility
• Removing Items And Clearing Child Windows
• Closing Child Windows

Overview

• Closing the parent window closes all child windows and exits the application.
• Child windows can be modal.
• Child windows can have associated actions.

Creating Child Windows

A new child window is created using the newWindow command.

Example

newWindow {win1 {"Add Customer"} 80x24}

...Creates a child window called win1 with a title of "Add Customer" and is 80 columns wide and 24 rows deep.

Child windows may be modal. In this case all of the application windows, apart from the modal window, are disabled. Only the modal window is active. This is useful when creating dialog boxes which must have a user response before any other part of the application may be used.

Child windows may have an associated action. The action is invoked when the window is closed using the title bar close button (For example: The "X" button at the top right of a window under Microsoft Windows) -or- The window control menu "Close" or "Quit" options. This can be useful to run a "tidy up" routine -or- in the case of modal windows, to provide a default value.

By default, the window manager will decide where to place a child window on the screen. However; it is possible to specify a specific location.

Example

newWindow {win1 {"Add Customer"} 80x24 +200+100}

...Creates a child window called win1 with a title of "Add Customer", is 80 columns wide and 24 rows deep and is placed, with its top-left corner, 200 pixels to the right and 100 pixels down from the top-left of the screen.

There are two internal variables (:fposition and :tposition) which return the current position of a window.

Using SAT/DL Commands With Child Windows

• addToolbar: The toolbar must be given a dot notation name.
• addMenu, newScreen, setMessage, setSize or setTitle: Specify the child window name as the first parameter.

Using The Default Window Facility

Where it is required that a series of commands are to add items to a child window, the setWindow command can be used to set the default window in which items will be created.

Example

addEntry {Entry1 1,1 6,20}
setWindow win1
addEntry {Entry2 1,1 6,20}
addEntry {Entry3 1,3 6,20}

This has the same effect as...

addEntry {Entry1 1,1 6,20}
addEntry {win1.Entry2 1,1 6,20}
addEntry {win1.Entry3 1,3 6,20}

setWindow win1
addEntry {Entry1 1,1 6,20}
addButton {Test1 1,3 8 {doit entry1}}

When a default window is set, explicitly specifying a window for an item using the dot notation overrides the default. When it is necessary to refer to an item in the parent window for an action when a default window has been set, the name of the item should be prefixed with a dot (".").

Example

addEntry {Entry1 1,1 6,20}
setWindow win1
addButton {Test1 1,1 8 {doit .entry1}}

To set the default window back to the parent window...

setWindow {}

Removing Items And Clearing Child Windows

Individual items are permanently reomved from a child window using the remove command with dot notation.

Example

remove win1.entry1

Child windows can be completely cleared using the clear command.

Example

clear win1

Closing Child Windows

Child windows can be closed using the closeWindow command.

Exmaple

closeWindow win1

It is possible that the user may decide to close a window by using one the title bar close button; (For example: The "X" button at the top right of a window under Microsoft Windows) -or- The window control menu "Close" or "Quit" options. This condition is detected and the display is automatically cleared before closing. However, it may be neccessary (say in the case of a modal window where the user must respond before the application continues) to supply a default response -or- maybe to perform some kind of tidy-up action. To deal with this it is possible to associate an action with a window when it is created using newWindow.

Example

newWindow {win1 {"Add Customer Confirmation"} 40x8 modal setdefault}

...Creates a modal window with an associated action setdefault. If the window is closed using one of the window manager control options the setdefault action is invoked. If the window is closed using closeWindow the action is not invoked.

The action can also specify parameters.

Example

newWindow {win1 {"Add Customer Confirmation"} 40x8 modal {setdefault 'win1' 'no'}

...Here two literal parameters 'win1' and 'no' will be passed to the setdefault action.