Chapter Four:

Creating DADiSP Menus and Dialog Boxes

The DADiSP menuing system is designed to make sophisticated, custom DADiSP applications available to end-users without requiring the user to have specific knowledge of the details behind the application.

In this chapter, you will learn about:

Invoking and Moving Around Menus

Creating a Custom Menu

Menu File Options

Using Menu Commands and Keywords

Menus are simply text files. There are no limitations to what you can type into a text file, therefore, the user can specify exactly what they want to see on the menu. Menus have unlimited access to all DADiSP functions, macros, and command files. Each DADiSP menu can call other DADiSP menus, and each can have individualized help and explanation files. You can even build a DADiSP menu with a DADiSP menu.

The term menu actually refers to three main types of custom GUI objects: menulists, summary display boxes, and dialog boxes or panels.

A menulist is simply a list of options, one of which the user may choose. Menulists do not accept user input. A menulist can immediately perform a command or call another menu.

Summary display boxes display information. Summary display boxes do not accept user input, nor do they allow the user to choose an option to perform a function.

Dialog boxes or panels allow user input. Some of the many features that can appear in a dialog box include: input fields, radio buttons, check boxes, drop down list boxes, tabbed dialog boxes, separation lines, color pickers, and lists of available DADiSP Windows.

All types of menus can be written to include access to an on-line help file.

This discussions of menu development will start with simple menu lists and display menus, then progress to more complex dialog boxes where the details of menu controls and features will be presented. The end of the chapter includes examples of advanced menus and related techniques.