• Recent changes
• Fixed problems
• Compatibility
• Base Attributes
• Dialog
• GroupBox
• StaticText
• PushButton
• CheckBox
• RadioButton
• EditText
• ListBox
• HelpText
• PopText
• POPUP BOX
• New Controls
• Dialog specific Controls.
  • Toolbar
  • Separator
  • Menu Bar
  • Menu
  • Menu Item
  • Status Bar
• ComboBox Control
• HTML View Control
• Tab Box
• Image
• Application object
• System object
• New Path operator

• Version 1.2.1.4
  • The .line[n] ComboBox attribute has been introduced. It allows to set or change a particular combobox line. Previously, only the .add attribute was available to append new lines (#1690).
  • The .editable ComboBox attribute has been introduced.
  • If the width of a StaticText, PushButton, CheckBox or RadioButton is 0, DLG SET ".text" sets it to the width of the text. The new width is now based on the underlying font, ensuring that the entire text is visible. Previously, the new width was calculated based on the character raster which caused the text to be clipped if a font was used which was wider than the raster width. Also, the CheckBoxes and RadioButtons were often wider than necessary (#1516, #2153).
  • In the eloqsd remote start configuration (Applications.cfg), the application title can be prefixed with an icon (#1181).

• Previous versions:
  • The .fgcolor and .bgcolor base attributes have been introduced (#2037). The previous .fgc and .bgc attributes were limited in that they could not return a string value. They also caused an ambiguity problem in the IDE Dialog Editor. For backwards compatibility, .fgc and .bgc are still provided.
  • The Show Sessions dialog now displays in addition the title of the active dialog for each session. This allows to identify a session more conveniently.
  • The TabBox rule handling has been fixed. In addition, tab (aka. groupbox) specific rules are now supported. Please refer to the documentation below and the examples in the distribution about the changes compared to the previous implementation (#1449).
  • The toolhelp base attribute has been added.
  • The scrollable tabbox attribute has been added.
  • The theme setting has been added to the JDLG configuration.
  • The Image control has a new mode now, which scales the image in is aspect ration and centers it.
  • The StaticText has a textpos attribute now.
  • The ListBox has a singleclick attribute now.
  • The Dialog may have its own icon in the title bar.
  • The Application object allows to activate a reference point for a session, please see below.
  • The System object has know the jdlgversion attribute.
  • The ruleoverride attribute symantic of the CheckBox and RadioButton has been changed (#1157).
  • The CheckBox has a correct width now if the textlength is zero (#1150).
  • The Java Metal Look and Feel is now available under Windows too.
  • A Dialog or a POPUP BOX can be always on top (#813).
  • The Application start mechanism has a debug mode now (#814).
  • Separators are added to the system for Menus and Toolbars (#398).
  • The layout of the ToolBar container changed (#637).
  • A WindowMenu which displays all active dialogs is available now (#529).
  • The access path may contain a placeholder (asterisk) now. Please see below how it simplfies the access to a control.
  • The dialog has more layout capabilities now (#32). Please have a look to the xauto and yauto attribute.
  • The user can resize Dialogs now (#40). This is an experimental functionality!
  • The StatusBar layout managment has been changed to the normal grid layout. (#560)
  • A list of active Dialogs had been implemented. (#529)
  • A confirmation box will be displayed to prevent the user to stop JDLG if sessions are active. (#522)
  • The .cr Attribute works now. (#565)
  • A new connection mechanism has been implemented to resolve the problem of using JDLG and RUNSRV in parallel. (#359)
  • A tracing configuration dialog has been added to the system.
  • HTML viewer control has been added. (#230)
  • Single line EditText controls can be used for hidden password entry. (#102)
  • The Window Close is now ignored unless a DLG DO is active and the dialog box has an associated .rule set which is then returned to the application. (#52)
  • Context sensitive on-line help is available. (#80)
  • A Manifest in the jar archive allows automatic start of JDLG. (#265)
  • .border is now supported for GroupBox. (#142)
  • Lots of bug fixes.

Fixed problems:

• Version 1.2.2.3
  • DLG DO did not always put the dialog into foreground.
  • The new Application.ipaddress and Application.dnsname attributes return the local ip address and host name used in the session's DLG network connection. The System.ipaddress and System.dnsname attributes are now deprecated and should no longer be used. For backwards compatibility, they return the local ip address and host name used in the DLG network connection of the most recent session (i.e., the session which was most recently started).

• Version 1.2.2.2
  • JDLG could abort with a NullPointerException when an undefined object was addressed with DLG GET (#2768).

• Version 1.2.2.1
  • DLG DRAW always forced a dialog into foreground.
  • If multiple applications are active, an internal race condition could cause two or more dialogs to struggle for the topmost display position.
  • JDLG could abort with a NullPointerException when a wrong data type was used with DLG SET (e.g.: DLG SET "EditText.content",0) (#2720)
  • The eloquence.config.errorlog configuration has been introduced to log any Java exceptions and runtime errors into a file. Previously, JDLG had to run in a terminal/console, otherwise the Java standard error output was not output.
  • In a session configuration file, the $host macro is now replaced with the local address of the established eloqsd connection. This avoids that on systems with multiple network interfaces the IP address of the wrong interface is choosen (#2764).

• Version 1.2.2.0
  • Pressing TAB or ENTER on an edittext without a rule inside a TabBox could cause a wrong focus to be set, which in turn could cause a wrong rule to be executed.
  • Versions 1.2.1.8 and 1.2.1.9 incorporated a bug which could cause a StaticText, PushButton, CheckBox or RadioButton to not display its text correctly (#1516, #2153).

• Version 1.2.1.9
  • Version 1.2.1.8 incorporated a bug which could cause a StaticText, PushButton, CheckBox ort RadioButton to retain a wrong width.

• Version 1.2.1.8
  • If a CheckBox or a RadioButton does not have a text and its width is not set, the CheckBox or RadioButton was not displayed.

• Version 1.2.1.7
  • EditText and ComboBox rules were not always triggered when accelerator keys were used. The ComboBox keyboard navigation and rule handling did not always work as expected (#2618).
  • When the up/down keys were used to select a PopText entry, each keystroke triggered the PopText rule (#2507). The current version fixes this problem if JDLG is run under Java 1.4 or newer.
  • With .resizepolicy = scale, a rounding error could occur which could cause a wrong font size to be calculated (#2273).

• Version 1.2.1.6
  • JDLG could abort with an ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException when certain Unicode punctation characters were input (#2020). This was already fixed in version 1.2.0.9 but had to be re-integrated into the current version.

• Version 1.2.1.5
  • CheckBoxes and RadioButtons did not always display the complete text if their width was automatically calculated based on the text width (#1516, #2153).
  • The .ruleoverride = 0 attribute did not always work as expected due to a race condition (#2435).

• Version 1.2.1.4
  • JDLG aborted with a NullPointerException if eloquence.config.sessions referred to a nonexisting URL (#2096).
  • DLG SET ".content","" on a ComboBox did not clear the combobox edittext but selected the first entry (#2155).
  • If the wildcard '*' was used in DLG SET as last path component to set the content (as in DLG SET "MainDialog.*.content",""), StaticText objects were affected as well (#2389).
  • DLG SET ".activeline",1 on an empty PopText caused the session to become unresponsive due to an OutOfBoundsException (#2408).
  • If DLG SET ".async",1 was used during DLG LOAD, JDLG could silently abort due to an incomplete network receive (#2413).
  • DLG GET ".content" on a ComboBox could return an empty string unless the ENTER key was pressed in the combobox edittext (#2417).

• Previous versions:
  • JDLG behaved errorneously when eloquence.config.baseurl and/or eloquence.config.helpbaseurl were defined in a config file (#2066). This was caused by an inappropriate initialization during startup and is fixed with Version 1.2.1.0.
  • Version 1.2.0.9 fixes a problem where JDLG could abort with an ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException when certain Unicode punctation characters were input (#2020).
  • Version 1.2.0.8 fixes an eloqsd login problem. After entering a valid login and password, the error message "unable to decrypt password" could occur.
  • The rule handling of the TabBox control has been refined (#1419).
  • A rule MenuItem problem has been fixed (#1211).
  • Under some conditions the Radiobutton, CheckBox and PushButtons were not activated correctly.
  • The ListBox activeline and cy attributes are working conform to ASCII DLG now (#1321).
  • Up and down arrow keys activating EditText rule now (#1315).
  • On ListBoxes only the left button activates the rule (#1224).
  • When a user navigates with keys in a ListBox sometimes the selected item was not visible. Fixed.
  • There were some minor navigation problems in the EditText control. They are fixed now (#1209, #1210).
  • The textpos attribute could not be cloned. Fixed.
  • The simple controls are now navigateable with Up- and Down-Arrow-Keys (#572).
  • There is a configuration solution starting the Web Browser without getting MS-DOS Windows (#1126).
  • The EditText control had an input problem if the text was selected with the mouse. (#990).
  • The default line of the ListBox is now compliant with ASCII DLG behavior (#1087).
  • The $login token of the Application.cfg configuration will be expanded correctly now after a failed login (#1056).
  • The DLG DO "main.control" command sets the focus to the control now (#1043).
  • Some minor Menu navigation errors are fixed now (#951, #1001).
  • The displayed number of lines in a ListBox was inncorrect (#895).
  • The always on top feature did not work correctly which is fixed now (#882).
  • The topitem in the ListBox works correct now with a 0 based value. (#608)
  • SHIFT-TAB resulted in a blocked system under some circumstances. Fixed. (#605)
  • Sometimes a window was not destructed correctly under Linux. It is fixed (#43)
  • Under Windows we had some Focus problems, they are fixed now (#548, #570)
  • Under some circumstances children of the TabBox control were not drawn correctly. Now they will be updated immidiatly and be painted as the user had defined them. (#83, #551)
  • The .do attribute works in the right manner now (#552)
  • Minor layout fix inside of the ListBox control were done if the border attribute is set greater than zero (#558)
  • Scrolling the HTMLViewer Control to the end of the content if using the .add Attribute is scotched now (#513)
  • Ignore Eloquence enhancement switch characters (#261)
  • A race condition between the GUI and the protocol thread could cause blocked windows instead of hiding them (#274)
  • Another race condition between the GUI and the protocol thread caused a blocking if a dialog was deleted. (#497)
  • A Pusbutton ruleoverride works now correctly. (#437)
  • JDLG windows are no longer resizable (#40)
  • Performance has been enhanced (#130)
  • A few memory leaks have been fixed (#144)
  • The .async protocol mode does now work correctly (#152)
  • DLG GET ".async" does now work correctly (#145)
  • Function key F9 works (#105)
  • POPUP BOX Pushbuttons can be activated with single character now (#124)
  • The Dialog .do attribute is implemented (#141)
  • A few focus problems have been solved (#423)

• Running JDLG with a Java Runtime Environment 1.3.1 under SuSe 7.1 or 7.2 may cause a Segmentation Fault during startup the system(#1314).
• The € Symbol is not available on the Window98 Platforms on the AltGr+E key combination when using JDK1.3.1_XX. Internally we are mapping the character code 186 (in decimal) to the € symbol now (#1196).
• Under Windows the System.alwaysontop does not work if an other application as JDLG has the focus (#782).
• The JRE does not run in 16 color mode under Windows.
• Under Windows the Proxy configuration of the Browser may not taken completely by WebStart and need to be configured by hand.
• The Dialog redraws itself too often.
• The layout policy scale in combination with the maximized attribute is not stabble.
• The PopupText control is implemented but has some problems.
• Performance on low end systems is likely to be slow. You should have 64MB of RAM and a CPU of 300 MHz above to use JDLG.
• The kbind attribute is not implemented.
• Keyboard accelerators are available with some restrictions (see below).
• DLG DO on a dialog without focusable objects causes a hangup
• Linux jdk 1.3.0 may cause a few keys not work correctly (eg. '?')
• The SUN JDK 1.3.X has a bug that causes random window positions with the KDE2 window manager.
• CheckBox and Radiobutton with a .rule attribute may case an previous EditText rule to be ignored when the focus is changed with the mouse.
• Background colors could be displayed differently on the Windows platform. This is a problem with the Windows GDI which remaps the colors in some cases. (#100)
• When an application aborts unexpectedly, Windows may left open.
• POPUP BOX layout should be enhanced (#21)

The Eloquence Java based dialog system currently implements most dialog controls and attributes as described in the manual. The section below describes differences in the implementation and behaviour for the dialog controls.

Base Attributes

Name	Comment
class
x	Positions and size depends on a raster as set by the specified reference font in the configuration file.
xleft	is a synonym for x.
xright	is the right distance from the control to the side of the container which surrounds it.
xauto	defines the horizontal layout behavior. If xauto > 0 the position of the control is defined by the x coordinate. Its width is defined by w. This is the default and behaves like the ASCII-DLG server does. If xauto = 0 the position of the control is defined by the x coordinate. xright shall be set and defines the distance of the right side of the control to its parent. Its width is calculated by w = parents.w - control.xright - control.x. As a result, scaling the dialog programmatically the width w of the control will be scaled too. If xauto < 0 the position of the control is calculated by x = parents.w - control.xright - control.w. xright shall be defined and sets the controls distance between the right side to its parent right side. w shall be defined. As the result the control is attached to the right side of the parent with the distance of xright.
y	see x
ytop	is a synonym for y
ybottom	defines the distance of the controls bottom side to the bottom of its parent
yauto	defines the vertical layout behavior. If yauto > 0 the position of the control is defined by y. The height can be set with h. This is the default and behaves like the ASCII-DLG server does. If yauto = 0 the position of the control is defined by y. ybottom shall be set and defines the distance from the parents bottom to the controls bottom side. The height is calculated by h = parents.h - control.ybottom - control.y. As the result the height of the control will be scaled if the height of the parent is scaled. If yauto < 0 the position is calculated by y = parents.h - control.ybottom - control.h. ybottom and h shall be set. The result is that the control is pined to the parents bottom side with the distance of ybottom.
w	see x
h	see x
fgcolor	Sets the control's foreground color. Accepts a string argument in "#rrggbb" form, where rr, gg and bb are hexadecimal values for the red, green and blue color intensities. Example: "#0000ff", "#0000c0" and "#000080" are various tones of blue.
bgcolor	Sets the control's background color. See fgcolor for details.
fgc	Provided for backwards compatibility, fgc accepts the same string argument format as fgcolor. However, integer values are accepted as well but ignored. Note: DLG GET always returns a 0 integer value.
bgc	Provided for backwards compatibility. See fgc for details.
visible
sensitive
rule
focus
focusobj
kbind	not yet supported
help
udata	Can contain string data or integer data. Initially the type is integer and returns 0. If a DLG SET call changes the type the DLG GET should have a variable which has the same type as the last set operation. Otherwise you will get an 659 error or an empty sting as the result of the call.
Keyboard Accelerators	A Keyboard Accelerator can be used with a StaticText, PushButton, RadioButton and CheckBox control. The .alt attribute has no meaning and is ignored. A keyboard accelerator is triggered by pressing the ALT key and the underlined character at the same time. A keyboard accelerator is marked by a preceding & sign as described in the manual.
fontface	The fontface attribute sets the font. Allowed string values are Serif, SansSerif, Monospaced, Dialog or DialogInput or a platform specific font name such as Courier (which may not be present on all systems). It is recommended to use Monospaced or DialogInput as your fonts because they have a fixed width for each character otherwise the dialog layout may be different. The default value is DialogInput.
fontsize	The fontsize is the value for the fonts point size. Allowed values are every positive integer. The default value is 12. It is a positive integer value with the range bigger than zero. If it is less or equal than zero it will be set to the size of the default font.
fontstyle	The fontstyle attribute says which style we want to apply to the characters. Allowed string values are plain (example), italic (example) and bold (example). The default value is plain.
toolhelp	The toolhelp attribute is used to display a short context sensitive help text. Is a string value. If set the text is displayed. Resetting it with an empty string turns it off again.

A Dialog is the top-level Window which contains all other Controls. The size will be set programmatically. The user can not resize it.

Name	Comment
x	Sets the Dialog to the x Position which is calculated from the default fonts width multiplied with the value of the x Property. If x and y are set to -1 the dialog will be centered on the screen.
y	see x
title
border	Value is ignored.
f1 - f12	The function keys are working as described in the ASCII Dialog manual. The F10 key has an exception. If a code>Menubar is defined, the F10 key will activate it and does not handle it's rule.
do	Is an boolean value. If it is set to True the dialog falls in a special drawing mode. In that mode the dialog is active as it would be if a DLG DO command has been occured. But it does not run synchronized with the eloqcore process and it does not report a rule to the eloqcore process. The application developer needs to poll this attribute to find out that a rule was activated by the end user. If that had happened the attributes value had been set to False and the dialog became invisible implicit. The usage of this attribute is the implementation of a progress dialog where eloqcore processes a task and shall not block in a DLG DO command and the application developer want to give the end user the abillity to cancel the task.
cr	Works as described in the dialog manual.
alt	Keyboard accelerators are supported, but this attribute has no meaning. Accelerators are always use the ALT key.
bgimage	The bgimage sets a background image for the Dialog. The value is an URL string which points to a GIF or JPEG image on a web server. The default value is an empty string.
resizepolicy	The resizepolicy attribute defines the behavior of a Dialog when an end user resizes it. There are three string values allowed: none which means that the user can not resize the dialog. scale which results in rescaling the fontsize of the controls and does not affect their layout. layout which affects their layout dependend on the values of the xauto, yauto attributes. The default value is none. The resizepolicy effects also the size of a POPUP BOX which appears after a resized Dialog. If a Dialog has a policy of scale and was resized, than the fonts of the POPUP BOX are resized too (This does not work, if the controls contain HTML text!). The Application.dialogscaling attribute may overlay this behavior.
maximized	The maximized attribute means that the dialog will be displayed as big as possible on the screen. It is an integer value. Set it to 1 before the DLG DRAW or DLG DO statement is executed.
logoicon	The logoicon attribute sets a specific icon to the title of a Dialog. This could be managed system wide with the eloquence.config.logoicon property or session specific with the application.logoicon as well. The String must be an absolute URL to the location of the icon image file which might have the format of GIF, JPEG or PNG.

Please note: In the current implementation empty lines will be deleted from the content. This might result in an other length of number of lines as you might expected. Example:

1000 DIM Lines$(10)[64]
1100 !
1200 Lines$(1)  = "Line 1"
1300 Lines$(2)  = "Line 2"
1400 Lines$(3)  = "Line 3"
1500 Lines$(4)  = "Line 4"
1600 Lines$(5)  = "Line 5"
1700 Lines$(6)  = "Line 6"
1800 Lines$(7)  = "Line 7"
1900 Lines$(8)  = "Line 8"
2000 Lines$(9)  = "Line 9"
2100 Lines$(10) = "Line 10"

has 10 lines but

1000 DIM Lines$(10)[64]
1100 !
1200 Lines$(1)  = "Line 1"
1300 Lines$(2)  = "Line 2"
1400 Lines$(3)  = "Line 3"
1500 Lines$(4)  = ""
1600 Lines$(5)  = "Line 5"
1700 Lines$(6)  = "Line 6"
1800 Lines$(7)  = ""
1900 Lines$(8)  = "Line 8"
2000 Lines$(9)  = "Line 9"
2100 Lines$(10) = "Line 10"

has 8 lines, because Lines$(4) and Lines$(7) will be deleted by the System.

To resolve that problem please use

1000 DIM Lines$(10)[64]
1100 !
1200 Lines$(1)  = "Line 1"
1300 Lines$(2)  = "Line 2"
1400 Lines$(3)  = "Line 3"
1500 Lines$(4)  = " "
1600 Lines$(5)  = "Line 5"
1700 Lines$(6)  = "Line 6"
1800 Lines$(7)  = " "
1900 Lines$(8)  = "Line 8"
2000 Lines$(9)  = "Line 9"
2100 Lines$(10) = "Line 10"

Known Problems:
The Java Swing GUI Library has a few problems with the event handling model for this component. This causes keyboard navigation in a PopText control to execute a rule whenever the selection changes. If you select the control and press the up or down key it results in the rule execution everytime. We are looking for a solution of this problem.
An other bug is that the focusing does not work correctly for this control and effects the direct successor and predecessor. In the case that the rule is not zero it is possible that the focus will be set to the second successor and not to the first.
As a result it is a good idea not using this control with a rule != 0!

Attributes

Name	Type	Default value	GET	SET	Description
activeline	Integer	0	X	X	Sets the line which is visible. In a get command it returns the line which is the active (and visible) line. Is a 1 based value.
content	String	-	X	X	Sets the content of the control. Each line is separated by a newline character. The getter returns the lines separated by a new line.
length	Integer	-	X	-	Gets the length of the content.
vheight	Integer	-	X	-	Gets the number of lines.
vwidth	Integer	-	X	-	Gets the width of the longest line in the PopText control.
topitem	Integer	0	X	X	Sets the line which is visible (overlays activeline). Gets the number of the visible line (in sync with cy). Is a 0 based value.
cy	Integer	0	X	X	Sets the line which is visible (syncs topitem and so overlays activeline). Gets the number of the visible line. Is a 0 based value.
line	String	-	X	X	Sets the line with the given value. If the line exists the line will be replaced. If there is no given index the line will be inserted. Gets the content of the line with the given index. If no index is given the actual line (the cy value) will be returned.
read	String	-	-	-	Is not supported.
writefile	String	-	-	-	Is not supported
clear	-	-	-	X	Clears the content of the PopText.
add	String	-	-	X	Adds the content to the end of the list. If the string contains more than one line, where each line is separated by a newline character, it appends all lines to the end of the list.
ins	String	-	-	X	Inserts a line in front of the actual line which is signed by the cy attribute.
delln	Integer	-	-	X	Deletes count number of lines beginning by the line where cy points to.

The syntax is as follows:

1000 ...
1100 Rc=2
1200 POPUP BOX X,Y,"[Title][Couple|Of|Lines][First|Second]",Rc
1300 DISP Rc
1400 ..

The statment shows a Message Box at the coordinates of X and Y. If the are both set to -1, the Box will be centered onto the screen or if a Dialog was active before, centered to this Dialog.
The String argument contains three parts, separated by squared brackets. The first contains the title of the POPUP BOX. The second part gives the control the lines of text which shall be displayed. They are separated with a |. The third part contains the texts for the buttons. The maximum of five buttons are allowed. The first character of a button is handled as an accelerator key.
The optional variable at the end of the statement has two functions. If it is not zero and less the maximum number of buttons, it defines which button has the focus when the POPUP BOX appears. After the activation of a button, it contains the number of which was used. The activation of a button could be done by clicking on it, walking through them with the TAB key and pressing ENTER or SPACE. At least you can press the accelerator key to activate it directly.

A ToolBar is a container (like a GroupBox) which can contain child controls of any type like PushButton, CheckBox or RadioButton other than GroupBox. The standard position attributes (x, y) of the ToolBar elements are ignored. The size attributes (w, h) are recognized.
The ToolBar container uses an automatic layout.

Attributes

Name	Type	Default value	GET	SET	Description
position	A string of: top|right|bottom|left.	top	X	X	Determines where the ToolBar appears in the Dialog.

Example

dialog main {

  Toolbar TheDialogShortCuts {
    .position = "bottom"

    Pushbutton save {
      ...
    }

    statictext hello {
      ...
    }

    edittext bingo {
      ...
    }
  }
}

It has no attributes.

Example:

dialog main {

  menubar TheBar {

    menu program {
      .title = "&Program"

      menuitem open {
        .title = "Open &File"
        .accelerator = "ctrl F"
        .rule = 1000
        .icon = "http://anywhere.on-the.net/image.gif"
      }

      menuitem save {
        .title = "&Save File"
        .accelerator = "alt S"
        .rule = 1001
        .type = "checkbox"
      }
      
      menuitem exit {
        .title = "&Exit"
        .accelerator = "alt X"
        .rule = 1003
      }
    }

    menu edit {
      .title = "&Edit"
      
      menuitem copy {
        .title = "&Copy"
      }

      menuitem paste {
        .title = "&Paste"
      }

      menu insert {
        .title = "Insert"

        menuitem file {
          .title = "&File"
        }

        menuitem graphic {
          .title = "&graphic"
          .accelerator = "alt G"
          .rule = 2000
        }
      }
    }

    windowmenu wm {
      # the display of all active dialogs.
    }

    menu help {
      .title = "&Help"

      menuitem index {
        .title ="&Index"
      }
 
      menuitem sep1 {
        .type = "separator"
      }

      menuitem about {
        .title = "&About"
      }
    }
  }
}

Attributes

Name	Type	Default value	GET	SET	Description
title	String	Empty string	X	X	This gives the Menu its title. An & signs the letter which will be used for the mnemonic keyboard shortcut. The ALT+<Mnemonic-Key> activates the Menu.

There is a special Menu available which has the control class WindowMenu and may have any name. It displays the active dialogs of all sessions in JDLG. You can place it anywhere in the MenuBar. If the user clicks on an entry in the Menu the selected Dialog comes to the front of all other windows.

Attributes

Name	Type	Default value	GET	SET	Description
title	String	Window	X	X	This gives the WindowMenu its title. The default is the title Window with the Alt+W accelerator key.

MenuItem

Attributes

Name	Type	Default value	GET	SET	Description
title	String	Empty string	X	X	Is the MenuItems description. An & signs the letter which will be used for the mnemonic keyboard shortcut. An item can be activated via a mnemonic key stroke if the Menu which contains the item is visible.
accelerator	String value with the syntax: ( alt | ctrl )* [A-Z].	empty	X	X	Defines the accelerator which activates the MenuItemwith a keyboard shortcut if its parent Menu is not visible. An accelerator can be defined only once in a Dialog!
rule	Any positive integer	0	X	X	Is the rule value which will be sent back of a DLG DO command.
type	Predefined string value: checkbox | item | radiobutton | separator.	item	X	-	Defines the type of an entry. It must be set in the dlg file and cannot be changed later.
active	Boolean	false	X	X	In the case that the MenuItem is of the type radiobutton or checkbox it sets or gets the state of the control. If it is of type item a set does nothing and a get always returns False
activebtn	String	empty	X	-	In the case that the MenuItem is of the type radiobutton it returns the path to the active radiobutton MenuItem. In the other cases it always returns an empty string for the path.
icon	String of an URL which points to a GIF or JPEG image on a web server.	empty	X	X	This is an icon for an MenuItem entry. If it is set it will be displayed in front of the MenuItem label.
textpos	Predefined string value: top | right | bottom | left | center.	If no icon is available it is center otherwise right.	X	X	Sets the position of the text.

Attributes

Name	Type	Default value	GET	SET	Description
x	Integer	0	X	X	This attribute has no meaning.
y	Integer	0	X	X	see x.
w	Integer	width of the Dialog	X	-	The StatusBar has the width of the Dialog.
h	Integer	1	X	X	Defines the height of the StatusBar. The default is 1.

Example:

dialog main {
  .x = -1
  .y = -1
  .w = 50
  .h = 20

  statusbar TheStatusLine {
    .h = 1

    statictext text {
      .x = 0
      .y = 0

      .text = "Status:"
    }

    edittext output {
      .x = 8
      .y = 0

      .content = "Still calculating..."
      .editable = 0
    }

    edittext postoutput {
      .x = 30 
      .y = 0

      .content  = "An output String"
      .editable = 0
    }
  }

  statictext date {
    .x = 0
    .y = 0
    .h = 1
    .w = 10

    .text = "1999-12-31"
  }
}

Please note, this type of control would normaly named PopText. For compatibility reasons we'd created a new control and left the original PopText untouched.

Attributes

Name	Type	Default value	GET	SET	Description
content	String	-	X	X	Is the text of the input line.
items	Strings separated by CHR$(10).	-	X	X	Creates a choice list from the string. Each line is separated by a CHR$(10) character.
line[i]	String	-	X	X	Sets or modifies a line. The index is 1-based. Index 0 on DLG GET returns the text of the input line, on DLG SET appends the line to the list.
add	String	-	-	X	Adds the given single line string to the end of the choice list.
editable	Integer	1	X	X	A nonzero integer value specifies that the input line is editable.
clear	String	-	-	X	Clears the choice list.

It can be used in two ways:

1. Setting the page via a given URL, or
2. Setting the page via it's content or add attributes.

In both cases it is assumed that the content contains any valid HTML 3.2 source code or plain text.

A HTML page may contain hyperlinks. A web browser can handle links with a lot of different schemas (protocols) like http, ftp, gopher or others. Our control is intented to be used with the http and/or eloq protocol. The http protocol works as expected: The activation of such type of link starts a download of the next HTML page to which it points to. The eloq protocol interacts with the JDLG server and activates a rule. If the dialog is in a DLG DO command it returns from its execution. The value of the returned rule is defined by the rule attribute of the control or the link. The eloq schema links have the following syntax:

eloqschema      :=   "eloq:" | "eloq:" optRule optLinkFragment
optRule         :=   <empty>
                   | <Integer Value>
optLinkFragment :=   <empty>
                   | '/' <AnyString>

Default Rule Activation

The activation of such link offers the programmer the opportunity to define fine granulated behaviour of his application. In the simplest form it activates the standard rule handling of the control. That means that if the controls rule value is not equal to zero it returns from the DLG DO with the expected behaviour. If it is set to -1 the help subsystem will be activated. An example of such a link is:

<a href="eloq:">Default rule handling</a> activation.

Specialized Rule Activation

The optRule part of the href attribute syntax defines an other type of rule activation. If the link contains an integer number, than the rule will be activated with that value. So the DO command returns with the path of the HTMLView control and the rule of the link.

Example:

<!-- In the HTML content -->

<a href="eloq:1234">A specialized</a> rule activation.


! In the Eloquence basic file

1000 DLG DO "htmlviewerdialog",Rule,Path$;Err_code
1100 PRINT "Rule="&VAL$(Rule)&" Path="&Path$"

dialog htmlviewerdialog {
...

  htmlview hview {

    .rule = 2000
  }
...
}

the rule of the link overrides the rule of the control.

The Fragment of the Schema

For example: You have generated a list from a query result and presented it in a HTML table. Now you want to offer the user the ability to select a specific entry and show him a more detailed presentation of it. For this task you need the primary key of the entry but you do not want to remember it in your program. Instead you would preferre to save it in the presentation and resolve it from the system after, which entry had been activated.
For these situations we had implemented the link fragment.
The steps to realize it programmatically are:

1. Generate the list with the key of the entry as a link fragment
2. Ask JDLG after the DLG DO command returned which link had been activated.

      ! DO a DBFIND
      ! DO a DBGET
      !
10000 DLG SET "dlg.hview.add","<li><a href="eloq:/theKeyOfTheGetOp">"
                              &"The data presentation</a></li>" 
      !
20000 DLG DO "dlg",Rule
      !
21000 DLG GET "dlg.hview.lastlinkfragment",Llf$
      !
22000 PRINT Llf$

The value of the link fragment depends on two parameters: The first is the value of HTML link definition. The second is the time when the dialog had been synchronized. If the dialog enters a DLG DO command the value of the lastlinkfragment will be reset to an empty string. After the command has been left, it might changed to another value if the user had been activated a link what you can find out with a specific rule.

The control has the default attributes as described in the Base Attributes section. The following table describes the specific attributes for the HTML View control.

Attributes

Name	Type	Default value	GET	SET	Description
content	String	empty	X	X	This attribute contains the content of the text which is presented by the control. If the getter is used, it returns the string presentation of the content. If it is set, the viewer presents a new page with the given content. It is assumed that the MIME type of the content is text/html.
mimetype	String	text/html	X	X	This attribute says which mime type will be used if the content attribute is set. Allowed values are text/plain text/html
add	String	empty	-	X	This attribute appends the given text to the content.
clear	-	empty	-	X	Clears the content of the control.
url	String	empty	X	X	This attribute is a string for an URL which points to a HTML document instance. If the getter is used, it returns the presentation of the URL. If it is set, a new page will be shown in the viewer with the content if the HTML file to which the URL points to. The web server should send text/html as the MIME type for the content of that file.
lastlinkfragment	String	empty	X	-	This attribute returns the fragment of the last activated link which has the eloq schema in the URI description. It will be reset during the entrance of a DLG DO command and might be set through an activation of a link in the displayed HTML page.

Notes:

If you set a HTML page to the control which contains links to web servers which are not reachable JDLG hangs until it gets a time out. Because a user might think that JDLG had been crashed, it is not a good idea to give the user success setting links manually. It is safer to use verified links in your programs than allowing a manual user input.

An other problem is that the control might be go "out of order" if the HTML text is not conformant to the HTML 3.2 specification. To make it clear that you are using correct HTML code please use a tool like Tidy for varification or other public verification sites.

Attributes

Name	Type	Default value	Getter	Setter	Description
rule	Integer.	-1	X	X	If it is set than a DLG DO command will return from its execution if the user selects an other folder then the one which is on top.
selectedtab	String.	1	X	X	Setting this attribute brings the tab folder with the given path fragment to the front of the TabBox. Getting this value says which tab folder is on top of the other tab folders.
tabs	Integer.	0	X	-	Getting this value says how many tab folders are available.
tabplacement	Predefined string value: top | right | bottom | left.	top	X	X	This attributes defines the place where the titles of the tab folders are placed.
ruleoverride	Integer.	0	X	X	When this attribute is set to 0 a pending EditText rule will be executed first and the pending rule of a tab folder change will be executed on the next DLG DO. If the focus is explicitly set before the second DLG DO command the pending rule will not be executed. If the value is set to 1 the rule of the TabBox will be executed and a potential rule of an EditText field will be discarded.
scrollable	Integer.	0	X	X	This attribute allows enabling the horizontal scrolling of the TabBox headers if it is set to 1. 0 disables scrolling and is the default value. Please note that this is just available if JDLG runs under a Java Virtual Machine with Version of 1.4 or above!

Rule handling

The simplest Form

dialog simple {
  .x = -1
  .y = -1
  .w = 80
  .h = 24

  .title = "Simple"

  tabbox tb {
    .x = 1
    .y = 1
    .w = 78
    .h = 19

    .rule = 1000

    groupbox gr1 {
      .title = "First"
      
      edittext et1 {
        .x = 1
        .y = 1
        .w = 20
        .h = 1
      }
    }

    simple.tb.gr1 gr2 {
       .title = "Second"
    }
  }

  statictext info {
    .x = 5
    .y = 20
    .h = 1
  }

  pushbutton exit {
    .x    = 5
    .y    = 22
    .h    = 1
    .text = "E&xit"
    .rule = 5000
  }
}

In such a dialog you can obtain that the user has changed the tab order. If he or she clicks on the folder Second JDLG return the rule 1000. Now you know that a change appeared but you do not know which folder is on top. Finding out that you can use the operation

DLG GET "simple.tb.selectedtab",Path$

Using GroupBox rules

dialog groupboxusage {
  .x = -1
  .y = -1
  .w = 80
  .h = 24

  .title = "With GroupBoxes"

  tabbox tb {
    .x = 1
    .y = 1
    .w = 78
    .h = 19

    .rule = 1000

    groupbox gr1 {
      .title = "First"

      .rule = 10000
      
      edittext et1 {
        .x = 1
        .y = 1
        .w = 20
        .h = 1
      }
    }

    groupboxusage.tb.gr1 gr2 {
       .title = "Second"

       .rule = 0
    }

    groupboxusage.tb.gr1 gr3 {
       .title = "Third"

       .rule = 30000
    }
  }

  statictext info {
    .x = 5
    .y = 20
    .w = 40
    .h = 1
  }

  pushbutton exit {
    .x    = 5
    .y    = 22
    .h    = 1
    .text = "E&xit"
    .rule = 5000
  }
}

How does the dialog behave? If the First folder is on top and the user clicks on the Second folder JDLG returns the rule of the TabBox. JDLG behaves in that manner because the GroupBox does not have a rule set. Clicking on the other folders JDLG returns the rule values of that one which comes on to. In general words: If a GroupBox has a rule on it comes on top, JDLG returns that rule. If the rule of the GroupBox is zero the rule of the TabBox will be returned.

When an EditText has a rule

dialog easyedit {
  .x = -1
  .y = -1
  .w = 80
  .h = 24

  .title = "EditText rules"

  tabbox tb {
    .x = 1
    .y = 1
    .w = 78
    .h = 19

    .rule = 1000

    groupbox gr1 {
      .title = "First"
      
      edittext et1 {
        .x = 1
        .y = 1
        .w = 20
        .h = 1
        .rule = 3000
      }
    }

    easyedit.tb.gr1 gr2 {
       .title = "Second"
    }
  }

  statictext info1 {
    .x = 5
    .y = 20
    .h = 1
  }

  statictext info2 {
    .x = 5
    .y = 21
    .h = 1
  }

  pushbutton exit {
    .x    = 5
    .y    = 22
    .h    = 1
    .text = "E&xit"
    .rule = 5000
  }
}

If you change form one folder to another when the focus set on a folder, the behavior is as shown in the Simple dialog example. If you set the focus into the EditText field and change the folder order now JDLG returns first the EditText rule. Now the application goes into a second DLG DO which returns immidiately with the rule of the TabBox. With this behavior you will get the ability to check the EditText and you know that the user changed the folder order. There is an exception of this order! When you are setting the focus between the first and the second DLG DO the pending TabBox rule will not be reported. In this situation the system expects that you are no longer interested in the order of the TabBox or you will set it implicitly with the focus which is possible and is described below.

GroupBox and EditText rules

Ruleoverride

dialog override {
  .x = -1
  .y = -1
  .w = 80
  .h = 24

  .title = "EditText TabBox ruleoverride"

  tabbox tb {
    .x = 1
    .y = 1
    .w = 78
    .h = 19

    .rule = 1000
    .ruleoverride = 1

    groupbox gr1 {
      .title = "First"
      
      edittext et1 {
        .x = 1
        .y = 1
        .w = 20
        .h = 1
        .rule = 3000
        .content = "has rule"
      }

      override.tb.gr1.et1 et2 {
        .y = 2
        .rule = 0
        .content = "has no rule"
      }
    }

    override.tb.gr1 gr2 {
       .title = "Second"
    }
  }

  statictext info1 {
    .x = 5
    .y = 20
    .h = 1
  }

  statictext info2 {
    .x = 5
    .y = 21
    .h = 1
  }

  pushbutton exit {
    .x    = 5
    .y    = 23
    .h    = 1
    .text = "E&xit"
    .rule = 5000
  }
}

If the focus sits in the first EditText field of the first folder and the user presses the TAB key or clicks into the second EditText field, the rule of the EditText field will be reported in a DLG DO operation.

If the focus sit in th efirst EditText field of the first folder and the user clicks onto the second folder, JDLG report the rule of the TabBox and ignores the EditText rule because the ruleoverride attribute is set to 1
As GroupBoxes overlay the TabBox rules in other configurations they are overlay them here as well. So if the second folder would have a rule, the EditText has the focus and the user clicks on the second folder that folders rule would be reported by the system.

Focus influence to the tab folder order

Name	Comment
w	If the image is bigger then the given value, it will be clipped at the right side.
h	If the image is bigger then the given value, it will be clipped at the bottom.
url	The URL of the image. GIF and JPEG format is supported. An image could be loaded from a web server (eg. http://www.yoursite.com/images/test.gif) or from the local file system (eg. file:/C:/images/test.gif).
sw	Is an integer value with a default of 0. If the value is 0 the image will be centered or if it is too big for it it will be clipped. If it is -1 it will be set to the left and scaled to the right side. If you give it any other positiv value it will be set to the left and scaled to your given pixel size. Is the value -2 the image will be scaled in is aspect ratio and set to the center.
sh	Is an integer value with a default of 0. If the value is 0 the image will be centered or if it is too big for it it will be clipped. If it is -1 it will be set to the top and scaled to the bottom side. If you give it any other positiv value it will be set to the top and scaled to your given pixel size. Is the value -2 the image will be scaled in is aspect ratio and set to the center.

Attributes

Name	Type	Default value	Getter	Setter	Description
ipaddress	String	-	X	-	Returns the local ip address which is used in this session's DLG network connection.
dnsname	String	-	X	-	Returns the local fully qualified host name which is used in this session's DLG network connection.
baseurl	String	empty string	X	X	Sets the base which is used with a relative URL. This makes it possible to specify relative URLs for DLG files and images after setting baseURL initially in the application.
helpbaseurl	String	empty string	X	X	Sets the base which is used with a relative URL. This makes it possible to specify relative URLs for the help function.
browser	String	empty string	-	X	Sends a request to the Browser on the Machine where JDLG is running. It can be an absolute or relative URL.
activeontop	Integer	1	X	X	If this attribute is true, the default, the activation of a Dialog which is not in the DLG DO command brings the Dialog to the front which is in the DO state. So the system ensures that the user can see the active Dialog of the session.
dialogscaling	Integer	1	X	X	This attributes defines how a dialog behaves if it is becomes visible. If the session has a scalable dialog running and the user resizes it the session calculates a rescaling factor. It is based on the size of the default font and the size of the font which the users dialog has. Now a user finishes the actual dialog and the application shows another one with DLG DO or DLG DRAW. If the dialogscaling attribute is set to 1 the upcoming dialog will rescale itself using the factor which the session has. If the dialogscaling is set to 0 the upcoming dialog would not be scaled. Please note that this attribute do not affect if a dialog is scalable by the user or not. This is done with the Dialog.resizepolicy attribute itself. History note: This behavior has been changed from 1.1.6.0 to 1.1.7.0!
referencepoint	Integer	0	X	X	The referencpoint attribute activates or deactivates the new feature which reminds the relative position of dialogs on the screen. Per default the value is set to 0 which means that JDLG does not affect the positioning of dialogs as it did before 1.1.7.0. When it is set to 1 it manipulates the positioning of dialogs in the following manner: The first upcomming dialog after the activation sets a virtual reference point on the screen. This will be the base point for the later dialog positioning operations. When the user now moves an active dialog around on the screen, the reference point will be updated when the DLG DO command ends. The next upcomming dialog will be placed relativly to the new virtual base point now. The advantage of the concept is, that active dialogs will appear near by each other. This makes it easier for an end user to determine which dialogs of a session belong together. The rules of initialization: If a dialog has the centering coordinates for x, y of (-1, -1), the dialog will be centered on the screen and the Referencepoint is set to the upper left corner. If a dialog has other coordinates, it is set to them on the screen relativly to the upper left corner. The Referencepoint is set to the upper left corner of the window. Positioning rules: After the initialization all dialogs which becomes visible are positioned relatively to the Referencepoint with their coordinates. Dialogs with the centering rule are set to the Referencepoint with their upper left corner. Visible dialogs will be left untouched. POPUP BOXes are handled in the same manner. Please note: This feature is experimental and your feedback is welcome to find out if this is an appropriate implementation. It also may change in future releases!
logoicon	String	URL to the default system icon	X	X	This property defines a session specific icon for the dialog title bar. When a dialog is instanciated it becomes this icon as the default icon. You can overlay this by setting the dialog.logoicon manually.

The following example defines the baseURL:

...
DLG SET ".driver", "yourhost"
...
DLG SET "Application.baseURL","http://eloquence.marxmeier.com/lab"
...
DLG LOAD "YourFile.DLG"
...

The following example lines return the driver type and version:

DLG GET "System.driver",D_type$
DLG GET "System.version",D_version$
PRINT "Driver type is "&D_type$&" version "&D_version$

System object - Attributes

Name	Value Type	Description	Available in
driver	String	This attribute defines which dialog implementation is in use. DLG is for the ASCII-Dialog implementation IDM for the ISA Dialog Manager based dialog server JDLG for the Java(TM) based dialog server and WEB for the Web based dialog server implementation.	JDLG
version	String	This attribute returns the version number of the dialog server. (ex. B.07.00.p3)	JDLG
jdlgversion	String	This attribute returns the version number of the Java(TM) dialog server. (ex. 1.1.7.0)	JDLG
ipaddress	String	deprecated, use Application.ipaddress instead	JDLG
dnsname	String	deprecated, use Application.dnsname instead	JDLG
osname	String	This attribute returns which operating system the driver is running on. (ex. Windows)	JDLG
osarch	String	This attribute returns the hardware architecture (ex. i386).	JDLG
osversion	String	This attribute returns the version of the operating system (ex. 4.0).	JDLG
username	String	This attribute returns who started the system (ex. Administrator).	JDLG
userdir	String	This attribute returns the users home directory (ex. C:\Windows\Profiles\default).	JDLG
workingdir	String	This attribute returns in which directory the system was started (ex. C:\Temp).	JDLG
screenresolution	Integer	This attribute returns which screen resolution - in dots-per-inch - is in use (ex. 75).	JDLG
screenwidth	Integer	This attribute returns how many pixel we have in X direction (1024).	JDLG
screenheight	Integer	This attribute returns how many pixel we have in Y direction (ex. 768).	JDLG
helpbaseurl	String	This attribute returns the configured URL for the Help Sub System.	JDLG
baseurl	String	This attribute returns the configured URL for resolving relative paths of used resources in the dlg files.	JDLG
javaversion	String	This attribute returns which version the Java Virtual Machine has.	JDLG
javavendor	String	This attribute returns who is the Java Virtual Machines vendor.	JDLG
javahome	String	This attribute returns where the Java Runtime System is installed.	JDLG
alwaysontop	Integer	The attribue defines, that the last Dialog or POPUP BOX are on top, so that the user can not hide the window. 1 activates the function. 0 deactivates it. If two or more sessions compete which Dialog is the on top one, the last DLG DO or POPUP BOX command wins.	JDLG

From the release 1.1.3.0 of JDLG on, there is a new capability to access a control by it's path. Normally the programmer needs to formulate the path to it and it's attribute absolutely like

1700 DLG SET "adialog.anedittext.content", "The content"

This has the disadvantage if you're changing the hierarchy of the Dialog, e.g. inserting a container to organize your layout, you need to change paths in your programs too.

To avoid the described problem, an asterisk * is allowed in the path know like

1700 DLG SET "adialog.*.anedittext.content","The content"
1800 ! Or
1900 DLG SET "adialog.acontainer.*.anedittext.content","The content"

If you use it in a set operation JDLG searches for all EditText Field descendends of the Dialog with the name of anedittext and sets their content attribute to the given value.
If you access a controls attribute in a get operation JDLG will return the value of the first recognized control with the given name.

So a path might have a structure like

path.to.a.container.*.accessed_control.attribute

Where the part before the asterisk points to a control which has a container type, the second last part of the path is a name of the control you want to access and the last part says which attribute shall be set.