Adding A User Interface To "Hello World; Dialog Box Overview - Adobe 27510753 - InDesign CS2 - PC Manual

Adobe InDesign CS2 Scripting Guide

Adding a user interface to "Hello World"

If you want your script to collect and act on information entered by you or by any other user of your script,
you can add a user interface to the script. AppleScript, VBScript, and JavaScript can create dialog boxes for
simple yes/no questions and text entry, but you might want to create more complex dialog boxes. Although
Visual Basic can create complete user interfaces, these run from a separate Visual Basic executable file.
InDesign scripting includes the ability to create complex dialog boxes that appear inside InDesign and that
look very much like the program's standard user interface.

Dialog box overview

An InDesign dialog box is an object like any other InDesign scripting object. The dialog box can contain
several kinds of elements.
Dialog box element
Text edit fields
Number entry fields
Pop-up menus
Controls that combine a text
edit field with a pop-up menu
Checkboxes
Radio buttons
The dialog box object itself does not directly contain the controls—that's the purpose of the dialog column
object. Dialog columns give you a way to control the positioning of controls within a dialog box. Inside dialog
columns, you can further subdivide the dialog box into other dialog columns or border panels (both of which
can, if necessary, contain further dialog columns and border panels).
Border panel
Static text
Radiobutton group
Radiobutton control
Integer editbox
InDesign name
Text editbox controls
Real editbox, integer editbox, measurement
editbox, percent editbox, angle editbox
Dropdown controls
Combobox controls
Checkbox controls
Radiobutton controls
Dialog column
Dialog column
Dropdown
Getting Started with InDesign Scripting
Dialog column
Dialog column
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Checkbox
control