Chapter 13: Creating a User Interface Service 295
iTool Developer’s Guide Predefined iTool UI Services
Predefined iTool UI Services
The iTool system distributed with IDL includes a number of predefined UI services.
These UI services are registered with the iTool system, which means that you can call
them from any operation, visualization, or other iTool component using the
DoUIService method of the IDLitTool class.
The majority of the predefined UI services provide interface elements that are
specific to the standard iTool implementation. In most cases, you do not need to call
these services directly; using the existing iTool operation or visualization code that
calls the UI service is sufficient. If you are creating a new UI service, you may want
to inspect the code for some of the standard UI services — they are located in the
lib/itools/ui_widgets subdirectory of the IDL directory and have file names
of the form
idlitui*.pro.
The following UI services are generally useful; you may wish to include calls to these
services in your own iTool operation or visualization code.
Hourglass Cursor Service
Displays the hourglass cursor. The hourglass cursor is displayed until processing
completes and a new IDL widget event is processed, at which time the previous
cursor is reinstated.
Registered Service Name
HourGlassCursor
Example
void = oTool->DoUIService('HourGlassCursor', self)
Operation Property Sheet Service
This service is designed to be called from within the DoExecuteUI method of an
iTool operation. It displays the property sheet for the operation, allowing the user to
set any operation properties before the operation is executed. The self argument is the
IDLitOperation object. The return value is 1 (one) if the specified properties were set
as requested, or 0 (zero) otherwise.
Registered Service Name
PropertySheet
