A wishlist of simple objects on the JScript popup menu

Help & Support
1

Here is a wish list for some far simpler JScript objects on the popup menu, in response to jon's hints of improvements in DOpus 12. (I understand that the columns and interactive things that I mentioned earlier are, of course, a far more complicated and difficult request.)

  1. At the moment, checkboxes seem only to be possible when there is also an input box, but it should be possible to have checkboxes without an input box. (The drop-down choices are far more fiddly to use because you can't see everything without pressing more keys or clicking.)

  2. There seems to be no way to create checkboxes that already have default ticks, leaving the user with the possibility of turning them off.

  3. Dependent checkboxes would be really nice. By that I mean if you turn off one checkbox, it automatically turns off one or more others. Similarly, there could be checkboxes such that if you turn one on it automatically turns on one or more others.

  4. A radio button setup would also be really nice, where exactly one of a number of options is selected and the others are unselected.

  5. At the moment, the width of a popup box wider than the standard minimum is determined by the row of clickable buttons at the bottom. Consequently very long strings without a spaces in the text above — URLs are a standard example — disappear beyond the right-hand edge (and there is not even a scrollbar to bring things into view). Could we also have popup boxes whose width is determined by the maximum of the total-button-width and the maximum-string-without-space-width. I've had to resort to:

                                                                • OK - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Points 3 and 4 above can of course be handled subsequently within the script using "if' statements, but if would be clearer for the users to see the ticks or radio button changing as they makes their choices.

As always, my apologies in advance for the inevitable things that I have misunderstood.

2

  1. You can, check/set Dialog.options(x).state before opening

  2. Dialog element scoped logic is something only a proper gui framework is about to offer. The thing is, the next one likes to disable all textboxes if a checkbox is clicked etc, starting to implement these things means opening a can of worms. o) This partly matches your point #1 and #4 as well, you can barely tell when there will be enough functionality added to cover all usecases. My suggestion is to not even start adding some of these bits, rather link to existing frameworks and possibilities (if possible o).

  3. You can have a dummy checkbox (you might even find a sensible use for it) and add blanks to the end of its label (as much as you like the dialog to grow horozoontally) and finally a tab at the very end ("\t" in javascript). This technique is what I use to get stretched out dialogs without adding a bunch of buttons with veeerryyy wiiiiddeee lllaaaabbeeells at the bottom. o)

3

Point 2: Thanks, tbone — very straightforward. I always seem to miss something obvious.

As for the others, we'll wait to see what Santa Klaus brings with DOpus Version 12.

Points 3 and 4: Yes, these do involve interactivity between the user and the popup. The radio button is surely straightforward, however, and has been around for many decades.

Point 1: There nevertheless seems no reason why a popup can't have checkboxes and buttons, but no input box.

Point 5: Thanks — I have several such workarounds now. It should be reasonably easy, however, to provide an option whereby the width is the maximum of:

  • the total button width, and
  • the text-above-the-buttons width, and
  • the DOpusIcon+Title+" — Directory Opus"+CloseIcon width, and
  • the standard minimum width,
    rather than just the maximum of the first and last.