Dialog

The Dialog component is used to aid default rendering in recognizing modal (pop-up) frames on the host screen.

The concept of the Dialog component is to find the smallest area around the cursor that fits the description of the border in a rectangular form, assuming you are working with modal dialogs. A modal dialog retains the input focus while open. The user must close or otherwise satisfy the dialog before switching to another window.

To input data and complete a modal dialog, ZIETrans assumes that the cursor must be within the dialog's border. Starting from the cursor character's coordinates on the screen, ZIETrans searches to the left for a valid vertical border character as defined by the Vertical border characters setting. If a valid left vertical border character is located, ZIETrans returns to the same cursor coordinate and searches to the right for a valid vertical border character. If valid vertical border characters are found on the left and right of the cursor coordinates, ZIETrans measures the distance between them to ensure that a valid length exists.

ZIETrans also searches for the top and the bottom horizontal border characters, as defined by the Horizontal border characters setting, using the same process as the search for the vertical border characters.

Because a dialog window is a rectangle, ZIETrans uses the columns of the left and right borders and the rows of the top and bottom borders to determine whether the columns meet the vertical criteria and the rows meet the horizontal criteria of a modal dialog. If the outer rows and columns of the rectangle align, assuming the Minimum row count attribute has been satisfied, the Dialog component declares the window as a match and the recognized area is rendered.

To configure this component, go to the Project Settings of your ZIETrans project, select the Rendering tab and click Default Rendering.
Note: The dialog component is only available in default rendering.

The dialog component is rendered using the Dialog widget.

The following figure shows how a Dialog component might appear on your host screen:
Figure 1. Dialog component example
Example of dialog component
  1. Horizontal border characters
  2. Vertical border characters
  3. Cursor must be positioned within dialog

The following settings can be configured for this component:

Horizontal border characters
Specifies the characters that make up the top and bottom borders of the dialog. By default, horizontal border characters are any protected reverse-video character, a period (.), a hyphen (-), or an underscore (_). Multiple characters are separated by a vertical bar (|) and are evaluated left to right.
Vertical border characters
Specifies the characters that make up the side borders of the dialog. By default, vertical border characters are any protected reverse-video character, a colon (:), or a vertical bar (|). Multiple characters are separated by a vertical bar (|) and are evaluated left to right.
Note: Because the vertical bar (|) is used as the separator when specifying multiple characters, use &vl. to specify a vertical bar (|) as a vertical border character.
In addition to characters, field attributes for border characters can also be specified in the Horizontal border characters and Vertical border characters settings for this component. The following indicators are used when specifying the attributes of a field. Each field specification is enclosed within a set of curly braces ( {...} ). Each indicator is separated by a space. To indicate a negative (NOT), add an exclamation point (!) as a prefix to the indicator, with no space between them.
  • Protected field: p
  • Hidden field: h
  • Numeric only field: no
  • High intensity field: hi
  • Foreground color of a field, post-indicated by hex character, example f_7
  • Reversed video field: rv
  • Underlined field: ul
  • Blinking field: b
  • Column separator field: c
Example: {!p hi no} specifies an unprotected highlighted numeric only field.
Note:
  1. When specifying field attributes for border characters, the specification is intended to be a modifier to the data directly preceding it, if any. For example:
    • {p rv} matches any protected, reverse video character.
    • :{p rv} matches only a single, protected, reverse video colon character.
    • {p rv}: matches any protected, reverse video character because the colon is not considered since it follows the field specification.
  2. The ordering of the indicators within the field attribute definition does not matter, because all indicators within a pair of curly braces must match for a border character to be recognized.
Minimum row count
The minimum number of rows the region must contain for it to be recognized as a dialog. The default is 3.
Minimum column count
The minimum number of columns the region must contain for it to be recognized as a dialog. The default is 3.
Cursor must be positioned within dialog
Specifies whether the cursor has to be within the region recognized as a dialog. If not selected, the region recognized as a dialog does not have to contain the cursor, and the user may get unexpected results if the dialogs are modal.
Allow interaction outside dialog
Specifies whether the area outside of the border should be disabled.
Note: Text replacement for content within the borders of a dialog cannot be defined using the Dialog component settings. The Dialog component itself is only the border of the dialog window (the box around it). The content within the borders is rendered by other components of the default rendering. To perform text replacement for content within a dialog, you can specify text replacement for the default rendering item that renders the dialog content. For example, text replacement can be specified for the Field component. To get an accurate view of the combination of Dialog and other components, click Full page preview.