Detached Dialogs

Unlike a simple dialog, with a detached dialog the Show method returns to the script immediately. It’s then the scripts responsibility to run a message loop for the dialog (which isn’t complicated in itself). It's this interactivity means the script is able to respond to dialog control input in real time.

To create a detached dialog, set the Dialog.detach property to True before you call the Show method. Alternatively, you can call Dialog.Create instead of Dialog.Show - this creates the dialog as detached but doesn't show it immediately, allowing you to initialize its controls before calling Show to display it.

However you create the detached dialog, after it's been displayed your script has to run a message loop until the dialog closes. Assuming your **Dialog**object is called Dlg, a basic message loop looks like this:

Basic Message Loop - VBScript

Do
  Set Msg = Dlg.GetMsg
  If Not Msg.result Then Exit Do
    ' Your code to process dialog events will go here.
Loop

Basic Message Loop - JScript

while (true) {
  var Msg = Dlg.GetMsg();
  if (!Msg.result) break;
  // Your code to process dialog events will go here.
}

(More complete code, including how to create the dialogs, is below.)

Although this message loop doesn’t do much, this is the bare minimum needed. The Dialog.GetMsg method returns a Msg object, and that object's result property is False when the user closes the dialog, which will cause the loop to exit.

Until the dialog is closed, actions taken by the user in the dialog will generate various events which can be accessed using the various properties of the Msg object returned by the GetMsg method.

Just like in a simple dialog, Button controls with their Close Dialog property set to True cause the dialog to close (and the Msg.result property to be False). However, with a detached dialog, the Show method will have already returned before the message loop started, and long before the dialog was closed, so the result of the Show method can’t be used to access the return value like it can with simple dialogs. Instead, the Dialog.result property can be used to find out which button the user pushed to close the dialog.

The following script code, along with the same resources from the previous example, demonstrate a simple detached dialog. If you want to experiment with this example, create a new toolbar button, and paste the script code into the Script Code tab of the command editor, and the resources XML into the Resources tab.

Script Code - VBScript

Function OnClick(ByRef clickData)
  Set Dlg = DOpus.Dlg
  Dlg.window = clickData.func.sourcetab
  Dlg.template = "testdlg"
  Dlg.detach = True
  Dlg.Show
  Do
    Set Msg = Dlg.GetMsg
    If Not Msg.result Then Exit Do
    DOpus.Output "Msg Event = " & Msg.event
  Loop
  DOpus.Output "Return code = " & Dlg.result
End Function

Script Code - JScript

function OnClick(clickData) {
  var Dlg = DOpus.Dlg;
  Dlg.window = clickData.func.sourcetab;
  Dlg.template = "testdlg";
  Dlg.detach = true;
  Dlg.Show();
  while (true) {
    var Msg = Dlg.GetMsg();
    if (!Msg.result) break;
    DOpus.Output("Msg Event = " + Msg.event);
  }
  DOpus.Output("Return code = " + Dlg.result);
}

Resources

<resources>
  <resource name="testdlg" type="dialog">
    <dialog fontsize="8" height="58" lang="" title="Test!" width="180">
      <control halign="left" height="8" name="static1" title="Test Dialog"
               type="static" width="35" x="72" y="9" />
      <control close="1" default="yes" height="14" name="button1" title="One"
               type="button" width="50" x="9" y="30" />
      <control close="2" height="14" name="button2" title="Two"
               type="button" width="50" x="66" y="30" />
      <control close="3" height="14" name="button3" title="Three"
               type="button" width="50" x="122" y="30" />
    </dialog>
  </resource>
</resources>