Pop-up Text Boxes

Pop-up text boxes are very effective ways to display information to the user during the execution of a command file. To display a pop-up text box, use the @POP function. @POP accepts a name for the text box, the x- and y-coordinates where it will be displayed, and the message text.

Pop-up text boxes allow you to display messages longer than the status line, as well as to display multiple messages at the same time. You can simply @POP different messages, as long as each pop-up text box has a unique name. In order for the user to read the pop-up text boxes, you must pause the command file execution by using @PAUSE, @SUSPEND, @SUSPEND_NOPASS, @WAIT, or @WAITKEY. After pausing, @UNPOP the message box(es). Remember that if you have multiple pop-up text boxes displayed at the same time, you must @UNPOP them in reverse order.

Messages that you display in a pop-up text box are fixed. That is, they accept a fixed string, and you cannot pass a DADiSP command to @POP and expect it to be evaluated before being displayed. Pop-up text boxes are also placed on the screen in a fixed position determined by the x- and y-coordinates passed to @POP in the command file; the user cannot reposition the displayed message boxes.

The colors of the pop-up text box are set by the global colors in the dspcolor file:

 RED   ! 8 popmes_background_color

 WHITE ! 12 poptext_foreground_color

 WHITE ! 24 pop_hilite

 BLACK ! 25 pop_shadow

You can change the colors of the pop-up text boxes during a command file by using the SETGCOLOR command. For example, to set the colors to light red text on a black background, use the command:

To dynamically change the fonts in your pop-up text boxes, use SETCONF to change POPBOX_FONT and the other POPBOX related parameters in the dadisp.cnf file. See the dadisp.cnf file or Appendix B of the DADiSP User Manual, "Modifying the DADiSP Configuration File", for more information.

The following command file demonstrates some pop-up text box message options: