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Inside Macintosh: Macintosh Toolbox Essentials /

Chapter 6 - Dialog Manager / Dialog Manager Reference

Data Structure

The Dialog Record

To create an alert or a dialog box, you use a Dialog Manager routine--such as Alert or GetNewDialog--that incorporates information from your item list resource and from your alert resource or dialog resource into a data structure, called a dialog record, in memory. The Dialog Manager creates a dialog record, which is a data structure of type DialogRecord, whenever your application creates an alert or a dialog box. Your application generally should not create a dialog record or directly access its fields.

TYPE  DialogPtr      = WindowPtr;
      DialogPeek     = ^DialogRecord

      DialogRecord   =
      RECORD
         window:     WindowRecord;  {dialog window}
         items:      Handle;        {item list resource}
         textH:      TEHandle;      {current editable text item}
         editField:  Integer;       {editable text item number }
                                    { minus 1}
         editOpen:   Integer;       {used internally; reserved}
         aDefItem:   Integer;       {default button item number}
      END;

Field Description

window

The window record for the alert box or dialog box.

items

A handle to the item list resource for the alert or the dialog box.

textH

A handle to the current editable text item.

editField

The current editable text item.

editOpen

Used internally; reserved.

aDefItem

The item number of the default button.