SFDialogs.DialogControl service

The DialogControl service manages the controls belonging to a dialog defined with the Basic Dialog Editor. Each instance of the current service represents a single control within a dialog box.

The focus is set on getting and setting the values displayed by the controls of the dialog box. Formatting is accessible via the XControlModel and XControlView properties.

Note that the unique DialogControl.Value property content varies according to the control type.

A special attention is given to controls of type tree control. It is easy to populate a tree, either branch by branch, or with a set of branches at once. Populating a tree control can be performed statically or dynamically.

The SFDialogs.DialogControl service is closely related to the SFDialogs.Dialog service.

Service invocation

Before using the DialogControl service the ScriptForge library needs to be loaded or imported:

• Basic macros require to load ScriptForge library using the following statement:
GlobalScope.BasicLibraries.loadLibrary("ScriptForge")

• Python scripts require an import from scriptforge module:
from scriptforge import CreateScriptService

The DialogControl service is invoked from an existing Dialog service instance through its Controls() method. The dialog must be initiated with the SFDialogs.Dialog service.

      Dim myDialog As Object, myControl As Object
      Set myDialog = CreateScriptService("SFDialogs.Dialog", "GlobalScope", myLibrary, DialogName)
      Set myControl = myDialog.Controls("myTextBox")
      myControl.Value = "Dialog started at " & Now()
      myDialog.Execute()
      ' ... process the controls actual values
      myDialog.Terminate()
   

     from time import localtime, strftime
     dlg = CreateScriptService('SFDialogs.Dialog', 'GlobalScope', lib_name, dlg_name)
     text = dlg.Controls('myTextBox')
     text.Value = "Dialog started at " + strftime("%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S", localtime())
     dlg.Execute()
     # ... process the controls actual values
     dlg.Terminate()
   

Retrieving the DialogControl instance that triggered a control event

An instance of the DialogControl service can be retrieved via the SFDialogs.DialogEvent service, provided that the dialog was initiated with the Dialog service. In the example below, oControl contains the DialogControl instance that triggered the control event.

      Sub aControlEventHandler(ByRef poEvent As Object)
          Dim oControl As Object
          Set oControl = CreateScriptService("SFDialogs.DialogEvent", poEvent)
          ' ...
      End Sub
  

Or using Python:

     def control_event_handler(event: uno):
         oControl = CreateScriptService('SFDialogs.DialogEvent', event)
         # ...
  

Note that in the previous examples, the prefix "SFDialogs." may be omitted when deemed appropriate.

Handling exceptions in event handlers

When creating an event handler for control events it is good practice to handle errors inside the subroutine itself. For instance, suppose the event handler below is called when button is clicked.

    Sub OnButtonClicked(ByRef oEvent As Object)
    On Local Error GoTo Catch
        Dim oControl As Object
        oControl = CreateScriptService("DialogEvent", oEvent)
        ' Process the event
        Exit Sub
    Catch:
        MsgBox SF_Exception.Description
        SF_Exception.Clear
    End Sub
  

Call SF_Exception.Clear if you do not want the error to propagate after the dialog execution ended.

In Python use native try/except blocks for exception handling as shown below:

    def on_button_clicked(event=None):
        try:
            oControl = CreateScriptService("DialogEvent", event)
            # Process the event
        except Exception as e:
            # The object "bas" below is an instance of the Basic service
            bas.MsgBox(str(e))
  

Control types

The DialogControl service is available for these control types:

Properties

The Value property

There's no Value property for GroupBox, Hyperlink, ImageControl and TreeControl dialog controls.

Event properties

Assigning events via the Basic IDE and assigning events via macros are mutually exclusive.

Methods

AddSubNode

Create and return a new node of the tree control as a UNO object subordinate to a parent node. Refer to XMutableTreeNode in Application Programming Interface (API) documentation for detailed information.

This method may be called before displaying the dialog box to build the initial tree. It may also be called from a dialog or control event - using the OnNodeExpanded event - to complete the tree dynamically.

svc.AddSubNode(parentnode: uno, displayvalue: str, opt datavalue: any): uno

parentnode: A node UNO object, of type com.sun.star.awt.tree.XMutableTreeNode.

displayvalue: The text appearing in the tree control box.

datavalue: Any value associated with the new node. datavalue may be a string, a number or a date. Omit the argument when not applicable.

Collabora Office Basic and Python examples pick up current document's myDialog dialog from Standard library.

      Dim oDlg As Object, myTree As Object, myNode As Object, theRoot As Object
      Set oDlg = CreateScriptService("Dialog",,, "myDialog")
      Set myTree = oDlg.Controls("myTreeControl")
      Set theRoot = myTree.CreateRoot("Tree top")
      Set myNode = myTree.AddSubNode(theRoot, "A branch ...")
   

     dlg = CreateScriptService('SFDialogs.Dialog', None, None, 'myDialog')
     tree = dlg.Controls('myTreeControl')
     root = tree.CreateRoot('Tree top')
     node = tree.AddSubNode(root, 'A branch ...')
   

AddSubTree

Return True when a subtree, subordinate to a parent node, could be inserted successfully in a tree control. If the parent node had already child nodes before calling this method, the child nodes are erased.

svc.AddSubTree(parentnode: uno, flattree: any, opt withdatavalue: bool): bool

parentnode: A node UNO object, of type com.sun.star.awt.tree.XMutableTreeNode.

flattree: a two dimension array sorted on the columns containing the display values. Such an array can be issued by the GetRows method applied on the SFDatabases.Database service. When an array item containing the text to be displayed is Empty or Null, no new subnode is created and the remainder of the row is skipped.

      Flat tree    >>>>    Resulting subtree
      A1	B1	C1             |__   A1	
      A1	B1	C2                   |__   B1
      A1	B2	C3                         |__  C1
      A2	B3	C4                         |__  C2
      A2	B3	C5                   |__   B2
      A3	B4	C6                         |__  C3
                             |__   A2
                                   |__   B3
                                         |__  C4
                                         |__  C5
                             |__   A3
                                   |__   B4
                                         |__  C6
   

withdatavalue: When False default value is used, every column of flattree contains the text to be displayed in the tree control. When True, the texts to be displayed (displayvalue) are in columns 0, 2, 4, ... while the data values (datavalue) are in columns 1, 3, 5, ...

      Dim myTree As Object, theRoot As Object, oDb As Object, vData As Variant
      Set myTree = myDialog.Controls("myTreeControl")
      Set theRoot = myTree.CreateRoot("By product category")
      Set oDb = CreateScriptService("SFDatabases.Database", "/home/.../mydatabase.odb")
      vData = oDb.GetRows("SELECT [Category].[Name], [Category].[ID], [Product].[Name], [Product].[ID] " _
          & "FROM [Category], [Product] WHERE [Product].[CategoryID] = [Category].[ID] " _
          & "ORDER BY [Category].[Name], [Product].[Name]")
      myTree.AddSubTree(theRoot, vData, WithDataValue := True)
   

     SQL_STMT = "SELECT [Category].[Name], [Category].[ID], [Product].[Name], [Product].[ID] \
         FROM [Category], [Product] WHERE [Product].[CategoryID] = [Category].[ID] \
         ORDER BY [Category].[Name], [Product].[Name]"
     tree = dlg.Controls('myTreeControl')
     root = tree.CreateRoot('By Product category')
     db = CreateScriptService('SFDatabases.Database', '/home/.../mydatabase.odb')
     sub_tree = db.GetRows(SQL_STMT)
     tree.AddSubTree(root, sub_tree, withdatavalue=True)
   

CreateRoot

Returns a new root node of the tree control, as a node UNO object of type com.sun.star.awt.tree.XMutableTreeNode. The new tree root is inserted below pre-existing root nodes. Refer to XMutableTreeNode in Application Programming Interface (API) documentation for detailed information.

This method may be called before displaying the dialog box to build the initial tree. It may also be called from a dialog or control event to complete the tree dynamically.

svc.CreateRoot(displayvalue: str, opt datavalue: any): uno

displayvalue: The text appearing in the tree control box.

      Dim myTree As Object, myNode As Object
      Set myTree = myDialog.Controls("myTreeControl")
      Set myNode = myTree.CreateRoot("Tree starts here ...")
   

     tree = dlg.Controls('myTreeControl')
     node = tree.CreateRoot('Tree starts here ...')
   

FindNode

Traverses the tree and finds recursively, starting from the root, a node meeting some criteria. Either - 1 match is enough - having its display value matching displayvalue pattern or having its data value equal to datavalue. The comparisons may be or not case-sensitive. The first matching occurrence is returned as a node UNO object of type com.sun.star.awt.tree.XMutableTreeNode. Refer to XMutableTreeNode in Application Programming Interface (API) documentation for detailed information.

When not found, the method returns Nothing, to be tested with the IsNull() builtin function.

This method may be called before displaying the dialog box to build the initial tree. It may also be called from a dialog or control event.

svc.FindNode(displayvalue: str = '', opt datavalue: any, casesensitive = False): uno

One argument out of displayvalue or datavalue must be specified. If both present, one match is sufficient to select the node.

displayvalue: The pattern to be matched. Refer to SF_String.IsLike() method for the list of possible wildcards. When equal to the zero-length string (default), this display value is not searched for.

casesensitive: Default value is False

      Dim myTree As Object, myNode As Object
      Set myTree = myDialog.Controls("myTreeControl")
      Set myNode = myTree.FindNode("*Sophie*", CaseSensitive := True)
   

     tree = dlg.Controls('myTreeControl')
     node = FindNode('*Sophie*', casesensitive=True)
     if node is None:
         # ...
   

Resize

Move the top-left corner of a dialog control to new coordinates and/or modify its dimensions. Return True if resizing was successful.

svc.Resize(opt Left: int, opt Top: int, opt Width: int, opt Height: int): bool

All distances are expressed in Map AppFont units and are measured from the top-left corner of the parent dialog. Without arguments the method resizes the control to its "preferred size", a size adjusted depending on its actual content. Missing arguments are left unchanged.

Left: The horizontal distance from the top-left corner

Top: The vertical distance from the top-left corner

Width: the horizontal width of the rectangle containing the control

Height: the vertical height of the rectangle containing the control

      Dim oControl As Object
      Set oDlg = CreateScriptService("SFDialogs.Dialog",,, "myDialog")
      Set oControl = oDlg.Controls("thisControl")
      oControl.Resize(100, 200, Height:=6000) ' Width is unchanged
    

      dlg = CreateScriptService('Dialog', None, None, 'myDialog')
      ctrl = dlg.Controls('thisControl')
      ctrl.Resize(300, 200, 1500)  # Height is unchanged
    

SetFocus

Set the focus on the control. Return True if focusing was successful.

This method is often called from a dialog or control event.

svc.SetFocus(): bool

      Dim oControl As Object
      Set oDlg = CreateScriptService("SFDialogs.Dialog",,, "myDialog")
      Set oControl = oDlg.Controls("thisControl")
      oControl.SetFocus()
    

      dlg = CreateScriptService('Dialog', None, None, 'myDialog')
      ctrl = dlg.Controls('thisControl')
      ctrl.SetFocus()
    

SetTableData

Fills a TableControl with the given data. All preexisting data is cleared before inserting the new data passed as argument.

When the TableControl is added to the dialog, it is possible to use the Basic IDE to define whether column and row headers will be shown in the table. If the TableControl has column and/or row headers, the first column and/or row in the provided data array are used as labels for the table headers.

This method returns True when successful.

svc.SetTableData(dataarray: any[0..*, 0..*], widths: int[0..*], alignments: str, RowHeaderWidth = 10): bool

dataarray: Data to be entered into the table represented as an Array of Arrays in Basic or a tuple of tuples in Python. The data must include column and row headers if they are to be displayed by the TableControl.

widths: Array containing the relative widths of each column. In other words, widths = (1, 2) means that the second column is twice as wide as the first one. If the number of values in the array is smaller than the number of columns in the table, then the last value in the array is used to define the width of the remaining columns.

alignments: Defines the alignment in each column as a string in which each character can be "L" (Left), "C" (Center), "R" (Right) or " " (whitespace, default, meaning left for strings and right for numeric values). If the length of the string is shorter than the number of columns in the table, then the last character in the string is used to define the alignment of the remaining columns.

RowHeaderWidth: width of the row header column expressed in Map AppFont units. Default = 10. The argument is ignored when the TableControl has no row header.

The following example assumes that the dialog myDialog has a TableControl named Grid1 with "Show row header" and "Show column header" properties set to "Yes".

     Dim myDialog As Object, oTable As Object, tableData As Variant
     myDialog = CreateScriptService("Dialog", "GlobalScope", "Standard", "myDialog")
     oTable = myDialog.Controls("Grid1")
     tableData = Array("Column A", "Column B", "Column C")
     tableData = SF_Array.AppendRow(tableData, Array("Row 1", 1, 2))
     tableData = SF_Array.AppendRow(tableData, Array("Row 2", 3, 4))
     tableData = SF_Array.AppendRow(tableData, Array("Row 3", 5, 6))
     vAlignments = "LCC"
     vWidths = Array(2, 1, 1)
     oTable.SetTableData(tableData, vWidths, vAlignments)
     myDialog.Execute()
   

The Value property returns the selected row in the table. If no row is selected, an empty Array object is returned. The following code snippet shows how to test if any row is selected in the table.

     rowValues = oTable.Value
     If UBound(rowValues) < 0 Then
         MsgBox "No row selected."
     Else
         MsgBox "Row " & oTable.ListIndex & " is selected."
     End If
   

     dlg = CreateScriptService("Dialog", "GlobalScope", "Standard", "myDialog")
     table_control = dlg.Controls("Grid1")
     table_data = (("Column A", "Column B", "Column C"),
                   ("Row 1", 1, 2),
                   ("Row 2", 3, 4),
                   ("Row 3", 5, 6))
     alignments = "LCC"
     widths = (100, 50, 50)
     table_control.SetTableData(table_data, widths, alignments)
     dlg.Execute()
   

     bas = CreateScriptService("Basic")
     row_values = table_control.Value
     if len(row_values) == 0:
         bas.MsgBox("No row selected.")
     else:
         bas.MsgBox(f"Row {table_control.ListIndex} is selected.")
   

WriteLine

Add a new line at the end of a multiline text field. A newline character will be inserted when appropriate. The method returns True when successful.

An error is raised if the actual control is not of the type TextField or is not multiline.

svc.WriteLine(opt line: str): bool

Line: The string to insert. Default is an empty line.

      Dim oDlg As Object, oControl As Object
      Set oDlg = CreateScriptService("SFDialogs.Dialog",,, "myDialog")
      Set oControl = oDlg.Controls("thisControl")
      oControl.WriteLine("a new line")
   

     dlg = CreateScriptService('SFDialogs.Dialog', None, None, 'myDialog')
     ctrl = dlg.Controls('thisControl')
     ctr.WriteLine("a new line")
   

All ScriptForge Basic routines or identifiers that are prefixed with an underscore character "_" are reserved for internal use. They are not meant be used in Basic macros or Python scripts.