% -*- Mode: LaTeX; Package: CLIM-USER -*-

\chapter {Dialog Facilities}
\label {dialogs}

\Issue {SWM} {There is a general issue about how these dialogs fit in with the
dialogs that might be provided by the underlying toolkit.  For example, under
what circumstances is CLIM allowed to directly use the dialog facility provided
by the host?}


\Defmacro {accepting-values} {(\optional stream
                               \key own-window exit-boxes 
                                    initially-select-query-identifier modify-initial-query
                                    resynchronize-every-pass resize-frame
                                    align-prompts label scroll-bars 
                                    x-position y-position width height
                                    command-table frame-class)
                              \body body}

Builds a dialog for user interaction based on calls to \cl{accept} within
\arg{body}. The user can select the values and change them, or use defaults if
they are supplied.  The dialog will also contain some sort of ``end'' and
``abort'' choices.  If ``end'' is selected, then \cl{accepting-values} returns
whatever values the body returns.  If ``abort'' is selected,
\cl{accepting-values} will invoke the \cl{abort} restart.

\arg{stream} is an interactive stream that \cl{accepting-values} will use to
build up the dialog.  The \arg{stream} argument is not evaluated, and must be a
symbol that is bound to a stream.  If \arg{stream} is \cl{t} (the default),
\cl{*standard-input*} is used.

\arg{body} is the body of the dialog, which contains calls to \cl{accept} that
will be intercepted by \cl{accepting-values} and used to build up the dialog.
\arg{body} may have zero or more declarations as its first forms.

An \cl{accepting-values} dialog is implemented as an application frame with a
looping structure.  First, \arg{body} is evaluated in order to collect the
output.  While the body is being evaluated, all calls to \cl{accept} call the
\cl{accept-present-default} presentation methods instead of calling the
\cl{accept} presentation methods.  The output is then displayed, preferably
using incremental redisplay in order to avoid unnecessary redisplay of unchanged
output.  If \arg{align-prompts} is \term{true} (the default is \cl{nil}), then
the fields of the dialog will be displayed within a call to
\cl{formatting-table} so that the prompts are aligned vertically on their
right-hand sides and the input fields are aligned on their left-hand sides.
This option is intended to support toolkits where users expect dialogs to have
this sort of layout.

After \cl{accepting-values} has displayed all of the fields, it awaits a user
gesture, such as clicking on one of the fields of the dialog.  When the user
clicks on a field, \cl{accepting-values} reads a new value for that field using
\cl{accept} and replaces the old value with the new value.  Then the loop is
started again, until the user either exits or aborts from the dialog.

Because of its looping structure, \cl{accepting-values} needs to be able to
uniquely identify each call to \cl{accept} in the body of the dialog.  The
\concept{query identifier} is used to identify the calls to \cl{accept}.  The
query identifier for a call to \cl{accept} is computed on each loop through the
dialog, and should therefore be free of side-effects.  Query identifiers are
compared using \cl{equal}.  Inside of \cl{accepting-values}, programmers should
supply the \cl{:query-identifier} argument to each call to \cl{accept}.  If
\cl{:query-identifier} is not explicitly supplied, the prompt for that call to
\cl{accept} is used as the query identifier.  Thus, if \cl{:query-identifier} is
not supplied, programmers must ensure that all of the prompts are different.  If
there is more than one call to \cl{accept} with the same query identifier, the
behavior of \cl{accepting-values} is unspecified.  

While inside \cl{accepting-values}, calls to \cl{accept} return a third value, a
boolean (``changed-p'') that indicates whether the object is the result of new
input by the user, or is just the previously supplied default.  The third value
will be \term{true} in the former case, \term{false} in the latter.

{\bf Implementation note:} each invocation of \cl{accepting-values} will
probably need to maintain a table that maps from a query identifier to the
output record for the field that used the query identifier, and the output
record for each field in the dialog will probably need a mapping back to the
query identifier.  A mediating object (a ``query object'') is also useful, for
instance, as a place to store the ``changed-p'' flag.

The class of the application frame created by \cl{accepting-values} will be
\cl{accept-values} or a subclass of \cl{accept-values}.  Programmers can use a
class of their own by supplying the name of a class via the \arg{frame-class}
argument.  CLIM will use the command table \cl{accept-values} as the command
table for \cl{accepting-values}.  Programmers can supply a command table of their
own by supplying the \arg{command-table} argument.

When \arg{own-window} is non-\cl{nil}, the dialog will appear in its own
``popped-up'' window.  In this case the initial value of \arg{stream} is a
window with which the dialog is associated.  (This is similar to the
\arg{associated-window} argument to \cl{menu-choose}.)  Within the \arg{body},
the value of \arg{stream} will be the ``popped-up'' window.  \arg{own-window} is
either \cl{t} or a list of alternating keyword options and values.  The accepted
options are \cl{:right-margin} and \cl{:bottom-margin}; their values control the
amount of extra space to the right of and below the dialog (useful if the user's
responses to the dialog take up more space than the initially displayed
defaults).  The allowed values for \cl{:right-margin} are the same as for the
\cl{:x-spacing} option to \cl{formatting-table}; the allowed values for
\cl{:bottom-margin} are the same as for the \cl{:y-spacing} option.

\issue {barmar, SWM} {When the programmer supplies \cl{:right-margin} or
\cl{:bottom-margin} options in the own-window argument, how is he supposed to
determine what's needed?  How about providing an option to permit the window to
resize itself dynamically?  There really needs to be a hook into
\cl{note-space-requirements-changed} or something.}

\arg{exit-boxes} specifies what the exit boxes should look like.  The default
behavior is though the following were supplied:

\begin{verbatim}
'((:exit "<End> uses these values")
  (:abort "<Abort> aborts"))
\end{verbatim}

\issue {barmar} {We need to describe the interpretation of the \arg{exit-boxes}
argument.  Are other keywords beside \cl{:exit} and \cl{:abort} permitted, such
as \cl{:help}?  It's pretty common for a dialog to have multiple ways to exit;
perhaps \cl{accepting-values} should return a second value that indicates which
exit box was selected.  This alist looks sort of like a menu item list; perhaps
the full generality should be permitted (so that the style of the exit box
messages can be specified).  The text strings that are shown in the default
value look more like documentation than button labels; I think both are
necessary, and the programmer must be able to find out what the default labels
are so that he can include them in the documentation (rather than hard-coding
"<End>" and "<Abort>").}

\arg{initially-select-query-identifier} specifies that a particular field in the
dialog should be pre-selected when the user interaction begins. The field to be
selected is tagged by the \cl{:query-identifier} option to \cl{accept}.  When
the initial display is output, the input editor cursor appears after the prompt
of the tagged field, just as if the user had selected that field by clicking on
it.  The default value, if any, for the selected field is not displayed.  When
\arg{modify-initial-query} is \term{true}, the initially selected field is
selected for modification rather than for replacement; the default is \cl{nil}.

\arg{resynchronize-every-pass} is a boolean option specifying whether earlier
queries depend on later values; the default is \term{false}.  When it is
\term{true}, the contents of the dialog are redisplayed an additional time after
each user interaction.  This has the effect of ensuring that, when the value of
some field of a dialog depends on the value of another field, all of the
displayed fields will be up to date.

When \arg{resize-frame} is \term{true}, own-window dialogs will be resized after
each pass through the redisplay loop.  The default is \cl{nil}.

\arg{label} is as for \cl{menu-choose}.  \arg{x-position} and \arg{y-position}
are as for \cl{menu-choose-from-drawer}.  \arg{width} and \arg{height} are real
numbers that specify the initial width and height of own-window dialogs.


\Defframe {accept-values}

\cl{accepting-values} must be implemented as a CLIM application frame that uses
\cl{accept-values} as the name of the frame class.


\Defgeneric {display-exit-boxes} {frame stream view}

Displays the exits boxes for the \cl{accepting-values} frame \arg{frame} on the
stream \arg{strea,} in the view \arg{view}.  The exit boxes specification is not
passed in directly, but is a slot in the frame.  The default method (on
\cl{accept-values}) simply writes a line of text associating the Exit and Abort
strings with presentations that either exit or abort from the dialog.

The \arg{frame}, \arg{stream}, and \arg{view} arguments may be specialized to
provide a different look-and-feel for different host window systems.

\Defgeneric {accept-values-resynchronize} {stream}

Causes \cl{accepting-values} to resynchronizes the dialog once on the accepting
values stream \arg{stream} before it restarts the dialog loop.


\Defmacro {accept-values-command-button} {(\optional stream
                                           \key documentation query-identifier
                                                cache-value cache-test resynchronize) 
                                          prompt
                                          \body body}

Displays the prompt \arg{prompt} on the stream \arg{stream} and creates an area
(the ``button'').  When a pointer button is clicked in this area at runtime,
\arg{body} will be evaluated.

\cl{accept-values-command-button} must be implemented by expanding into a call
to \cl{invoke-accept-values-command-button}, supplying a function that executes
\arg{body} as the \arg{continuation} argument to \cl{accept-values-command-button}.

The \arg{stream} argument is not evaluated, and must be a symbol that is bound
to a stream.  If \arg{stream} is \cl{t} (the default), \cl{*standard-input*} is
used.  \arg{body} may have zero or more declarations as its first forms.

\Defmethod {invoke-accept-values-command-button}
           {stream continuation view prompt
            \key documentation query-identifier cache-value cache-test resynchronize}

Displays the prompt \arg{prompt} on the stream \arg{stream} and creates an area
(the ``button'').  When a pointer button is clicked in this area at runtime, the
continuation will be called.  \arg{continuation} is a function that takes no
arguments.  \arg{view} is a view.

\arg{prompt} may be either a string (which will be displayed via
\cl{write-string}), or a form that will be evaluated to draw the button.

\arg{documentation} is an object that will be used to produce pointer
documentation for the button.  It defaults to \arg{prompt}.  If it is a string,
the string itself will be used as the pointer documentation.  Otherwise it must
be a function of one argument, the stream to which the documentation should be
written.

When \arg{resynchronize} is \term{true}, the dialog will be redisplayed an
additional time whenever the command button is clicked on.  See the
\arg{resynchronize-every-pass} argument to \cl{accepting-values}.
 
\arg{cache-value} and \arg{cache-test} are as for \cl{updating-output}.  That
is, \arg{cache-value} should evaluate to the same value if and only if the
output produced by \arg{prompt} does not ever change.  \arg{cache-test} is a
function of two arguments that is used to compare cache values.
\arg{cache-value} defaults to \cl{t} and \arg{cache-test} defaults to \cl{eql}.

This function may only be used inside the dynamic context of an
\cl{accepting-values}.
