Main Index :

User Interface

The console

Text Dialogs

Text dialogs are used to display a short string of text and then let the user choose between a limited number of choices:

TextDialog("Hello World!", DLG_OKCANCEL);

More information about text dialogs can be found here.

GUI Dialogs

In addition to the primitive methods above, plugins can communicate with the user through a GUI (graphical user interface). The main concept is the dialog. Plugins can open dialogs, both modal and non-modal, that can contain GUI components like buttons and text fields. There is a very versatile set of dialog interface features in the SDK, that allows plugins to be nearly fully integrated into the C4D environment.

Modal dialogs

A modal dialog is a dialog that takes full control of the application, requiring the user to dismiss it before continuing working. In C.O.F.F.E.E. such dialogs are created by deriving a class from GeModalDialog.

The basic header of such a dialog would look like this:

class MyDialog : GeModalDialog
{
public:
  MyDialog();
  CreateLayout();
}

The CreateLayout() function specifies how the dialog should look. You can read more about it here.

Once you have created the CreateLayout() function, you can open your dialog like this:

var dialog = new(MyDialog);
dialog->Open(-1, -1);
var result = dialog->GetResult();

If the dialog has a dialog group (i.e. OK and Cancel buttons), result will contain either TRUE or FALSE depending on which one was pressed. The -1, -1 coordinates specify that the dialog should be opened at the current mouse position.

Other interesting overloads include the Command() function, which is called when the user clicks on a button in the dialog or changes any of the fields, and the AskClose() function, which gives the possibility to check the input values before the dialog is closed.

Examples: ModalBounce.cof

Non-modal dialogs

Non-modal dialogs behave like C4D's built-in managers. The user can continue working without having to close the dialog, and the dialogs can be docked with the C4D manager layout. This kind of dialog is created by deriving a class from GeDialog.

The non-modal dialog class is somewhat more complicated that the modal class, and requires more knowledge about C4D's message system. A typical dialog might look like this:

class MyDialog : GeDialog
{
public:
  MyDialog();
  
  CreateLayout();
  Command(id,msg);

  Message(msg);
  CoreMessage(id,msg);
}

Just as the modal dialog it has a CreateLayout() function and a Command() function, and they are used in the same way. The dialog is also opened in a similar way:

var dialog = new(MyDialog);
dialog->Open(TRUE, -1, -1);

The TRUE specifies that the dialog should be non-modal. So yes, you can use the GeDialog class for modal dialogs too if you want full control.

One difference is that you need to store the created dialog in for example a global variable, so that the garbage collector doesn't destroy it. To ensure that a dialog can be docked in the C4D layout, it must be created by a MenuPlugin that has a RestoreLayout() function:

// Global storage
var d;

MyMenuPlugin::Execute(doc)
{
  // Open dialog when menu plugin is selected
  d->Open(TRUE,-1,-1);
}

MyMenuPlugin::RestoreLayout(secret)
{
  // Called by C4D to restore the dialog
  if (!d) d = new(MyDialog);
  d->RestoreLayout(secret);
}

main()
{
  // Initialize the dialog
  d = new(MyDialog);
  Register(MyMenuPlugin);
}

Confused? Just have a look at, and/or copy one of the examples.

Examples: AsyncBounce.cof, GuiDemo.cof