WgText Procedure

Reference Guide > W Routines > WgText Procedure

WgText Procedure

Displays a single-line text field for user input.

Usage

WgText, chars

Input Parameters

chars — A named or unnamed variable to be replaced with user input.

Output Parameters

chars — A string entered by the user. If WgText is dismissed before user input is entered, chars is set to a null string. In the case where a user enters numbers, chars will have to be type-cast. For example, if chars = '123.456', then FLOAT(chars) = 123.456.

note

wgtext_output — A common block internal to WgText containing one variable, which is the text entered by the user. When WgText is called stand-alone, it runs in its own event loop. Once the user finishes typing their input, control is passed back to the calling routine and the user input is accessed through the variable chars. However, if WgText is called from an existing widget application, the tool must use this calling widget's event loop. In this case, WgText is executed and control is passed back immediately to the calling widget application, before the user can enter their string into the text field. To allow the widget application that calls WgText to have access to the most recent entry by the user, include this common block in the calling widget application.

Keywords

Cols — An integer specifying the character width of the text field.

Parent — The widget ID of the parent widget. If no parent is specified, the toolkit is initialized and WgText runs in its own event loop.

Position — A two element vector containing the position, in pixels, of WgText's upper-left corner where [0,0] is the upper-left corner of the display.

Text — A string to be initially displayed in the text field. If not defined, the text field is empty.

Title — A string containing the title for the widget.

Shell — (Output) The ID of the newly created widget. If the procedure fails, zero (0) is returned.

Background — The background color (passed to all widgets).

Font — The font to use for widget text.

Foreground — The foreground color (passed to all widgets).

Example 1

WgText called from the command line.

; Font choice syntax different for Windows or UNIX...

IF STRMATCH(GETPLATFORM(), 'win') THEN fnt = 'Forte, 10' $

   ELSE fnt='-adobe-*-bold-*-*-*'

WgText, myString, Position=[300,100], Text='Default string', $

   Shell=shell, Background='Green', Font=fnt

INFO, myString, shell

Example 2

WgText called from another widget application.

PRO BUTTONSCB, wid, which

   COMMON teststuff, workArea

   COMMON wgtext_output, letters

     CASE which OF

       1: WgText, junk, Parent=workArea, Text='Have a nice day',$

          Title='Hello', Fore='Red', Pos=[100,600], Shell=shell

       2: BEGIN

          IF N_ELEMENTS(letters) GT 0 THEN BEGIN

            PM, letters, Title="You entered:"

          ENDIF ELSE BEGIN

            PRINT, STRING(7B)

            PRINT, 'Nothing has been entered yet'

          ENDELSE

END

       ENDCASE

END

PRO WGTEXT_TEST

   COMMON teststuff, workArea

   topShell = WwInit('WgText_test','WgText_test', workArea, $

      /Vertical, Position=[256,256], Spacing=5, Height=100, $

      Width=350)

   buttons = WwButtonBox(workArea, ['Call wgtext', $

      'See result'], 'BUTTONSCB')

   status=WwSetValue(topShell, /Display)

   WwLoop

END

Version 2017.0