Get user input with GUI in the runtime

Using a break() is definitely the wrong thing to do. There are two ways you can do this:

1. Pass ?dialogStyle 'modal to the hiCreateLayoutForm. 
2. Put the logic you want to do once the form is issued in a function that you call from the ?callback. 

The second is really the right way to do this. If you make the form blocking (the first approach), then unless you change the buttonLayout too, pressing the Apply button won't do what you want (it won't work properly with your break/continue approach either, which will also need a SKILL development license to run).

Andrew

Hi, I guess what you just need is the 'modal dialogStyle argument:

This should do what you expect:

(defun prompt nil
  "Prompt user, return typed string"
  (let ((form (hiCreateLayoutForm 'custom_prompt "Prompt"
                (hiCreateFormLayout 'main_layout ?items (list (hiCreateStringField ?name 'input ?prompt "Input")))
                ?dialogStyle 'modal
                ?buttonLayout 'OKCancel
                ?buttonDisabled '(Help)
                )))
    (hiDisplayForm form)
    form->input->value))

Cheers,

Aurélien

Andrew Beckett and AurelBuche:

Thank you for your replies! 

I agree with you that ?dialogStyle 'modal can be helpful to get the user input while the SKILL script is halted.  

However, in my case, the form should be 'modeless because the user have to check a cellview while it is halted and give some values.

In other words, while the program is halted, Virtuoso should not be halted.

Sorry for insufficient information in the prior question.  

More precisely, the toy example that I want to do is as below.

procedure( my_func()

let((a)

    form_id = toy_gui()

    a = form_id->str_field->value

    printf("a = %s\n" a)

);let

);procedure

procedure( toy_gui()

prog((str_field vbox_layout form_id)

    str_field = hiCreateStringField(?name 'str_field)

    vbox_layout = hiCreateVerticalBoxLayout('vbox_layout ?items list(str_field))

    form_id = hiCreateLayoutForm('toy_form "Example" vbox_layout ?buttonLayout 'OKCancel)

    hiDisplayForm(form_id)

    return(form_id)

);prog

);procedure

In this example, what I want to print is "a = <some value that I typed in the GUI>" but this program always print "a = " because the form is modeless.

So I use the break() and continue() callback trick.  

and Andrew Beckett:

In the second approach, is there any way to modify value a in my_func() by callback function, while a is a local variable?

sbkuizlzl said:

In the second approach, is there any way to modify value a in my_func() by callback function, while a is a local variable?

SKILL++ environments/closures are meant for this as I tried to explain in this post: Help me! How to SKILL activation in the background??

Cheers

Aurélien

You could use closures as Aurélien suggested, but it might just be as simple as doing this:

procedure( toy_cb(form_id)
let((a)
    a = form_id->str_field->value
    printf("a = %s\n" a)
)
)
procedure( toy_gui()
prog((str_field vbox_layout form_id)
    str_field = hiCreateStringField(?name 'str_field)
    vbox_layout = hiCreateVerticalBoxLayout('vbox_layout ?items list(str_field))
    form_id = hiCreateLayoutForm('toy_form "Example" vbox_layout 
	?buttonLayout 'OKCancel ?callback 'toy_cb)
    hiDisplayForm(form_id)
    return(form_id)
);prog
);procedure

Then call toy_gui, and then the callback can retrieve info from the form and make an action. Potentially if it needs to access information from before the form was displayed, that could be stored as properties on the form - but I didn't get that need from your description.

Andrew

Andrew Beckett and AurelBuche :

Thanks a lot.

I'll check the posts Aurélien suggests.