Tivoli Service Desk 6.0 Developer's Toolkit Interface Designer Guide
Forms created with the Interface Designer are called from a Developer's Toolkit program. The statements used to call forms are:
For more information on these statements, see the Tivoli Service Desk Developer's Toolkit Language Reference.
Resource files can reside in any location. You can open a resource file from the application using only its file name if you specify the filename in one of the following areas:
A new form has its own user interface and program (its event handler). The form exists until the user accepts or cancels it or until another part of the application sends a close message, $MsgClose.
There are two types of forms:
A modal form is created with DlgBox. The statement following DlgBox is not executed until the user closes the form. The information specified by the user is returned in the fourth argument to DlgBox and is the output record variable.
A modal form should be reserved for important error messages or critical forms where the user cannot continue without answering a query. For example, a message asking the user to confirm the deletion of a file.
A modeless form is created with DlgCreate. Modeless forms do not require a user response.
For more information on modal and modeless forms, see the TSD Developer's Toolkit Script Programming Guide.
When a resource file is saved, a binary (machine readable) version is created with a .dfc extension. It is the .dfc file that the Developer's Toolkit application actually uses.
To parse forms from a command line:
For more detailed information on parsing forms, see the TSD Developer's Toolkit Script Programming Guide.
Parsing errors can occur when you open a resource file created with a prior version of the Developer's Toolkit Dialog Box Painter or a file that has been edited with a text editor.
Opening a previous version of a .df file produces a number of warnings from the Interface Designer that can safely be ignored. However, if a parsing error occurs, an error message appears identifying the error type.
Note: Open the .df file in a text editor to correct parsing errors that prevent you from opening it.
The following examples create parsing errors in the Interface Designer. These examples only appear outside of the use of the Interface Designer. In other words, the following examples could not be created using the Interface Designer.
Tivoli Service Desk 6.0 Developer's Toolkit Interface Designer Guide