Re: End of program message

Posted by Grant Foraker on August 13, 2008 at 09:21:19: Uploaded files: 1

In Reply to: End of program message posted by Customer courteousy on August 12, 2008 at 23:54:03:

cc aka KSmith:

I find MSGBOX very useful. 95% OK, 4.9% Yes/NO and .1% other.

1) making sure the user sees and understands an error message or simple question.

This has evolved from

FOR LOOP = 1 TO 10
PRINT (0,2750) ! OUT OF BALANCE
NEXT LOOP

became

PRINT (0,2750) ! OUT OF BALANCE
PAUSE (36)

or

PRINT (0) (WC);'Out of balance"

and now

MSGBOX("Out of Balance")

2) Debugging programs that are still CED.

But, as I sloth my way down the windowizing path I've added another "retro" method for displaying messages to the user. I developed a dialog (see RCR.JPG) that has a big ListBox, a Progress Bar, and two Text Controls that I use as odometers.

RCR is a Cash Receipts Register and used to consist of RCR, RCR1, RCR2, RCR3, and RCR4. The new RCR is one program. The old sub programs have been converted into GOSUB's inside RCR. This allows me to keep control of the Windows controls in a way I understand.

Before even opening the dialog I gosub an InitialProgramLogic routine where I do my preliminary housekeeping and do things like "Is the driver file empty?", "Can I lock the driver file?", "Have control flags been set?", etc. If the program can't continue I use MSGBOX to display the error or warning and kick out to the menu. If all goes well, I load the dialog, display my "Continue?" question in the List Box, and wait for the PROCEED or CANCEL click.

If the user proceeds and I encounter an error like "Out of Balance", I display that message in the ListBox, disable the PROCEED, and set the focus on CANCEL. The CANCEL click lets the Auto Close routine do it's thing and the dialog is all closed up nice and neatly.

Funny thing. The ListBox is just a CRT I screen in it's version of (ET) :)

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