AUI, an acronum for "A-Shell User Interface," serves as a organizing wrapper for most of the primary classes of functions of the AUI Toolkit.
xcall AUI, CLASS, parameters
We use the object-oriented "class" terminology not to claim that these meet every definition of an object class, but to promote an object orientation to the understanding and use of the functions. Adopting this mind set early on in a text-to-GUI conversion project will reinforce good design and contribute to better results.
CLASS is a string which names the class of interface "object" from the following table.
Class |
Description |
|---|---|
Display and input controls. Properties include the control type (button, checkbox, etc.), size and position (using the row/col coordinate system), etc. Methods include create, modify, delete, save, restore, clear, etc. Same as MX_WINCTL. |
|
Abstract class whose purpose is to provide methods for waiting for an interface event (typically a button to be clicked). Used as an alternative to INFLD or other input routine. Same as MX_EVENTWAIT. |
|
Properties related to the interface environment. |
|
Menu items. Methods for adding, deleting, and enabling/disabling items. Same as MX_WINMNU. |
|
Special case of control for images. Same as IMAGE. |
|
Main display window configuration. Properties include number of rows and columns, status lines, colors. Methods include PRINT and Tab. |
|
Interface with HTML/CHM help files. |
|
other |
Other classes can be implemented as SBX modules. xcall APL,CLASS$,... will be treated internally as VXCALL CLASS$,... |
Note that there are some other class-level objects which could probably be in this table but are not. These controls were either developed before those noted in the table, or were deemed sufficiently important enough to have their own stand-alone function and documentation. Those topics are:
| • | INFLD, the control for handling data input and output. |
| • | XTREE, the control for managing trees and listboxes. |
| • | XTEXT, the control for managing text functions. |
