14. EasyDialogs -- Basic Macintosh dialogs

Availability: Macintosh.

The EasyDialogs module contains some simple dialogs for the Macintosh, modelled after the stdwin dialogs with similar names. All routines have an optional parameter id with which you can override the DLOG resource used for the dialog, as long as the item numbers correspond. See the source for details. The EasyDialogs module defines the following functions:

Message (str)

A modal dialog with the message text str, which should be at most 255 characters long, is displayed. Control is returned when the user clicks ``OK''.

AskString (prompt[, default])

Ask the user to input a string value, in a modal dialog. prompt is the promt message, the optional default arg is the initial value for the string. All strings can be at most 255 bytes long. AskString() returns the string entered or Nonein case the user cancelled.

AskYesNoCancel (question[, default])

Present a dialog with text question and three buttons labelled ``yes'', ``no'' and ``cancel''. Return 1 for yes, 0 for no and -1 for cancel. The default return value chosen by hitting return is 0. This can be changed with the optional default argument.

ProgressBar ([label[, maxval]])

Display a modeless progress dialog with a thermometer bar. label is the text string displayed (default ``Working...''), maxval is the value at which progress is complete (default 100). The returned object has one method, set(value), which sets the value of the progress bar. The bar remains visible until the object returned is discarded.

The progress bar has a ``cancel'' button, but it is currently non-functional.

Note that EasyDialogs does not currently use the notification manager. This means that displaying dialogs while the program is in the background will lead to unexpected results and possibly crashes. Also, all dialogs are modeless and hence expect to be at the top of the stacking order. This is true when the dialogs are created, but windows that pop-up later (like a console window) may also result in crashes.