DIALOG is used to display a textbox on the bottom screen. It's useful for debugging and simple menus.
There are 3 forms of the DIALOG command:
DIALOG( text$ [
, [
buttonType% ] [
, title$ [
, [
timeout% ] ] ] ]
)
list
DIALOG(text$)
DIALOG(text$,buttonType%)
DIALOG(text$,,title$)
DIALOG(text$,buttonType%,title$)
DIALOG(text$,,title$,)
DIALOG(text$,buttonType%,title$,)
DIALOG(text$,,title$,timeout%)
DIALOG(text$,buttonType%,title$,timeout%)Return value
1 - User selected OK/Yes/Next/Run (or pressed A), or pressed one of the buttons specified by buttonType%
0 - Dialog disappeared because the timeout period ended.
-1 - User selected No/Back/Cancel (or pressed B)
The system variable
RESULT is set to the same value.
text$
The message to display in the dialog box. This will be displayed in a variable width font. CHR$(10) and 13 can be used to add line breaks.
If the text is too long to fit, it will be cut off at the bottom.
buttonType%
Optional.
Controls the on-screen buttons that appear at the bottom of the textbox
0 - / OK
1 - No / Yes
2 - Back / Next
3 - Cancel / OK
4 - Cancel / Run
5 - / Next
Values between -1 and -15 can be used to control which buttons will end the textbox. (no buttons will display on the screen)
-1 - A, B, X, or Y
-2 - d-pad
-4 - L or R
-8 - touch screen
You can choose multiple options by adding the values. For example, -5 will allow A, B, X, Y, L, or R.
title$
Optional. Defaults to "
DIALOG"
Text to display at the top of the dialog box. Text that is too long will be cut off with ... at the end.
If you use CHR$(10) or 13, it will not display any characters after that.
timeout%
Optional. Defaults to 0
If this value is positive, the textbox will disappear automatically after that many seconds.
Negative values will count in frames (1/60 of a second) instead. (This is undocumented.)
0 will cause the dialog box to stay forever (until a button is pressed)
DIALOG text$ [
, [
buttonType% ] [
, title$ [
, [
timeout% ] ] ] ]
You can also call
DIALOG without a return value (
RESULT will still be set)
This works the same as the previous form.
DIALOG( initial$, title$ [
, maxLength% ]
)
Spoiler
DIALOG(initial$,title$)
DIALOG(initial$,title$,maxLength%)
This form of DIALOG allows the user to input text.
Allowed symbols are:
0-
9,
A-
Z,
-,
_, and
.
Return value
The return value will be a string containing at least 1 of the previously mentioned characters, with a maximum length set by maxLength%.
If the user presses B or [Back], it will return an empty string, and
RESULT will be set to -1, otherwise
RESULT is set to 1.
initial$
The initial value of the input box. If it is longer than maxLength%, it will be cut off. It is converted to uppercase, and an error will occur if it has any characters that are not allowed.
title$
The title of the textbox. The same as in the other forms of DIALOG.
maxLength%
Optional. Defaults to 14.
The maximum length of the input string. Can be between 1 and 14.
