Section G: What are Dialogue Boxes?
This section starts with an introduction, and continues with the following
sub-sections, (which follow on from each other in this page, as well
as being individual links within this page).
Introduction
A dialogue box is a window that appears temporarily on top of your
application window to request a variety of information in one place,
specific to your pull-down menu command. Many dialogue boxes have options
you must choose before Windows can carry out a command.
Dialogue boxes are designed to reduce memory load, and make executing
a task more user friendly, since all information specific to your current
task is presented to you in one place. Compare this with DOS applications
where, for example, if you want to print some specific pages in your
document, the options of where to print to, which pages to print, how
many copies, and what quality, may all be in different places, and you
have to exit from one list of options to choose from another. Dialogue
boxes are useful since with a single keyboard command (Tab) you can
move through the options in the box.
Once you have opened a dialogue box, you are presented with a number
of choices you could make, and some you must make. To express different
types of information, these choices are presented in different formats
(elements), and are operated in different ways. Once you know how to
operate each element, and how to navigate inside a dialogue box, you
can use any dialogue box in any Windows application, as they (should)
follow the same convention. There are six of these elements: pushbuttons,
checkboxes, radiobuttons, editfields, listboxes, and comboboxes, which
are described in detail in Sections G 3 to G 8. Not all dialogue boxes
will contain all six elements, and some might contain more than one
of the same element, but relating to different information.
Dialogue box windows behave slightly differently from application windows,
and you cannot ignore a dialogue box once it is open. You can only go
back to your application window and continue working by closing the
dialogue box, (choosing OK with Return) to execute your choices, or
Cancel with Esc). Therefore to execute a printing task, you would open
a dialogue box about printing, check the details, and specify other
information, and then once you are happy with the selections, choose
OK to print.
The other main difference between dialogue boxes and other windows,
is that dialogue boxes are a fixed size, and cannot be resized. They
can however, be moved around the screen (if you wanted to check your
document while completing the dialogue box for example). This is done
with the control menu, (Alt+Hyphen), and choosing M for Move, then using
the direction cursor keys to move it around the screen to the desired
position, and pressing Return to drop it.
G 1 Message Boxes
Message boxes will be mentioned here briefly, since they are a form
of dialogue box, but do not require much dialogue! These appear containing
messages or warnings in them, which usually need to be acknowledged
by pressing OK (Return), or to Cancel (Esc) a particular command you
tried to execute, or to resolve a particular problem before you can
continue working - "disk not inserted", for example. Others
could appear if you have a printing problem, where the message might
be simply "there is no paper in the printer", and you can
only choose OK after loading paper, or choose Cancel. to cancel the
Print command. Or, if you have asked to save a file with a name that
is already used by another document, you might be asked if you wanted
to Cancel the save command, or to Replace the file.
G 2 Navigating inside Dialogue Boxes
As with all windows, only one window at a time can have the system
focus. This means that when a dialogue box is open, it is the active
window, and has a blue title bar. As soon as the dialogue box opens,
the focus inside the dialogue box generally goes to the first item in
the box. The internal focus is indicated visually by a dotted line around
the element.
Important: Any changes or selections you make from individual elements
within one dialogue box remain until you choose OK or Cancel.
G 2a Tab to Move Element to Element
One way to work inside a dialogue box is to move the system focus,
from one element to another, and then to operate the element directly.
Use the Tab key to move the focus from element to element, and Shift+Tab
to go backwards. Although it would be convenient if the system focus
moved through the elements in the dialogue box in a systematic top-left
to bottom-right order, in some dialogue boxes this may not be the case,
so be careful - it can be easy to miss the last items if they are after
OK and Cancel, which usually do not appear as the bottom right elements
in the box.
Once the system focus is on the element you require having moved it
with the Tab key, then you can then operate it. These operations are
described in Sections G 3 to G 8.
G 2b Short-Cut Keys
Each item in a dialogue box has short-cut keys similar to those used
in the menu bar, and can therefore be selected with Alt and the underlined
letter. (Take care to remember that the short-cut keys in menu bars
and dialogue boxes use the Alt key, but pull-down menus do not.)
Some elements are actually operated with these short-cut keys (an option
may be turned on or off, for example), but others require additional
stages of operation once the short-cut keys have taken the system focus
to that element (for example, going to a list of files, and then having
to move through the items in the list).
G 3 Pushbuttons
(Also called Command Buttons). These are visually the size and shape
of the Tab key on the keyboard, and they look like you should push them!
They are used to initiate an immediate action, such as carrying out
or cancelling a command. In every dialogue box there is usually an OK
button, which closes the box, and carries out the commands you chose
in the dialogue box. This button can be pushed with the Return key for
OK. In addition, you have the option to cancel any commands in the box
with the Cancel button. To do this, use the Esc key. Sometimes there
is also a Help pushbutton, which starts the Help program, and this is
usually Alt+H.
Pushbuttons can be activated directly with the short-cut keys as described
above, or with the Return key once they have the system focus. To move
the system focus, use the Tab key, and when on the desired pushbutton,
pressing Return pushes the button. In general, the OK button is what
is called the Default Pushbutton in dialogue boxes, and will be pushed
immediately if you press the Return key if you are anywhere in the dialogue
box. But this only works if the system focus is NOT on any other pushbutton
at the time, as pressing Return will push that button, not OK. Return
will also NOT choose OK if the focus is in a listbox for changing directory,
and one directory in the list is selected (highlighted). (Pressing Return
here changes the directory level). So to choose Cancel, move the focus
to the Cancel button with the Tab key, and then press Return.
On some occasions, the OK button might be disabled, (shown in grey
type), indicating that you must make some selection in order to execute
the command. For example, if you ask to open a file, but you have not
selected a file to open, you obviously cannot open anything. The OK
button will remain disabled until there is a file selected (or you cancel
the dialogue box).
G 4 Checkboxes
These are related, but independent options which are available to you
at any particular time. You do not have to choose any of them, but you
can choose one or many of them at the same time, and they do not affect
each other.
Checkboxes toggle on and off (checked or unchecked), and visually a
checkbox is a little square, which is empty if unchecked, or has a cross
in it when it is checked. They can be checked and unchecked using their
short-cut keys, or, by moving the system focus to the desired checkbox,
and then pressing the spacebar. Sometimes checkboxes can be disabled
(in grey type), at a particular time, so are in-operable. Making one
change or insertion in the dialog box might re-enable the checkbox,
so it is worth having a look to see if it has changed status if the
checkbox was especially important to you for that task.
Examples of checkboxes are:
To select a style for text: bold, underlined, italics.
To make refinements in a Find task: match case, match whole word.
G 5 Radiobuttons
(Also called Option Buttons). These are a mutually exclusive group
of options, referring to one parameter, and visually grouped under this
particular heading, from which one and only one must always be chosen.
Visually, they are little black circles, with a black dot inside if
it has the selection, and empty if not.
A little aside: There is a theory that this term came from the old-style
radios with buttons for channels - to listen to the radio, one channel
had to be selected, and you couldn't ever tune into more than one, and
as you pushed the button in for one channel, the other button popped
out.
There are two ways of selecting radiobuttons in dialogue boxes. Using
their short-cut keys, you move the selection immediately from the current
radiobutton to the new one. The second way is to move the system focus
to the group with Tab, and then changing the selected radiobutton from
one to the other with the direction cursor keys.
Examples of radiobuttons are:
In a Find task: search the document (a) up, or (b) down from the cursor
position or (c) the whole document from the start.
When printing, you can print (a) the whole document, or (b) a selection
of pages.
In both cases, one of the options must be selected for the Find, or
Print task to be completed, and you cannot perform the operation if
more than one option is selected.
G 6 Editfields
(Also called Text Boxes) - these refer to any field in which you can
enter text. This could mean your entire word processing page, but in
a dialogue box, it is usually a restricted character text entry field,
with, for example a 2 or a 50 character limit. When the system focus
is on an editfield, your insertion point (the place at which any input
from the keyboard appears in the text) is at the start of the line in
the editfield. This is shown on the screen as a single vertical bar,
or in some applications as a little black rectangle. To move the insertion
point, there are standard Windows wordprocessing keyboard commands which
move it through the text (direction cursor keys, Ctrl+direction cursor
keys, Home, End etc).
Something to be aware of in editfields: when the system focus is moved
to the editfield, (with Tab or the short-cut key) an automatic highlight
is put on the text in the editfield. This selected text is fragile,
and any keypress will overwrite this selection, unless it is a command
like Copy, Cut etc. So pressing the delete key will delete the entire
selection, and pressing any letter will overwrite the highlighted selection.
To edit the selected text, without deleting or overwriting it, you
must first remove the highlighting. One press of a direction cursor
key will move the insertion point, and turn off the highlight, thus
unselecting the text. Then you can move the insertion point as described
above. To select (highlight) text, hold the Shift key down while using
the direction cursor keys to move the insertion point and pull the highlight
over the text. Release the Shift key when you have finished selecting.
Just for interest, when the mouse is over an editfield, it changes
shape from its usual arrowhead to what is known as an I-beam, which
looks like an elongated capital letter I. Using this I-beam you can
move the position of the insertion point to a new location very quickly,
and some access technologies will allow you to take advantage of this
direct manipulation capability.
Examples of editfields in dialogue boxes are:
A place to type in the name of a file to save or to open.
The name of the character string to find.
G 7 Listboxes
These are a list of related items grouped under a particular heading,
surrounded by a thin rectangular border. They can be used for browsing,
(for example, to remind you of what files you have in a particular directory
when you ask to save a file), and for selection purposes, (for example,
to select one from the list of files in the directory when you ask to
open a file, or to select a colour for your text from a list). The listbox
can be accessed with the short-cut key for the listbox (eg Alt+F for
File listbox), or by moving the system focus there with the Tab key.
Once the focus is on the listbox, you make selections by moving a highlight
up and down the items with the arrow keys, or by putting a highlight
on one by pressing its initial letter. Once the desired item is chosen
from the listbox, it will remain selected and you are free to continue
working in the dialogue box.
There is one occasion when pressing Return will not press the OK button.
If the system focus is in a directory listbox, and a new directory is
selected (highlighted) in the list, pressing Return will change to that
directory - not press OK. To press OK with Return, you must first move
the system focus out of the directory listbox, with Tab for example.
Sometimes, in small or overcrowded dialogue boxes, full listboxes are
condensed into "drop-down listboxes", which simply show you
the current selection in a small rectangular box, and using the direction
cursor keys, or the initial letter of items, you can change the selection
in the box. There is often a downwards pointing arrow-head to the right
of the box showing the current selection, and clicking on this will
pull down the full list. From the keyboard, the list can be pulled down
with Alt+direction cursor keys, and closed again with the same command.
Examples of listboxes are:
File listing in a particular directory.
Directory listing.
Font, size, or colour listing for text formatting.
G 8 Comboboxes
These are a combination of an editfield and a listbox (or listboxes),
hence the name! The listbox and editfield are highly related, and the
two elements may have separate short-cut keys, and can be accessed in
turn with the Tab key, but any changes or selections you make in one
will immediately affect the other.
For example, you could browse the list, and select (highlight) an item
in it, with the direction cursor keys, and by doing this, the editfield
will update to contain the item you highlighted in the listbox. This
could be when opening a file for example. An alternative action would
be to browse the items in the list, and decide you want to do something
which is not shown on the list, so you go back and type something directly
into the editfield. This could happen when you realise that the listbox
is showing a *.doc file listing, and you want to see text files, with
the *.txt extension. By typing *.txt into the editfield, and pressing
Return, the listbox updates to show you txt files. Or, you could simply
ignore what's showing in the list, and if you wanted to open a file,
and you knew where it was, just type the whole pathname into the editfield
and choose OK to open it.
Examples of comboboxes are: mainly in File Open dialogue boxes.
THAT'S IT!!
If you've read most of this Guide, you should know all the basics of
Windows, and could start to work in most standard applications, following
the standard keyboard commands described in this Guide. Although different
applications will obviously have very different functionality, which
could not be described here, you know how to work all the fundamental
parts of Windows applications, so just experiment!
GOOD LUCK!!
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