DrDialog

DrDialog is a tool for creating and editing Presentation Manager dialogs.

With its DrRexx feature, it can be used as a complete visual programming environment for REXX based applications. It was written by David Morrill when he was working for IBM and was included for free with the IBM Developer Connection. It allows developers to build windowed 32-bit applications using the Classic REXX language and with some modifications can be made to work with Object REXX as well.

DrDialog is a very good tool to develop PM applications in REXX. You can use DrDialog to develop event driven REXX programs with PM GUI.

Version

• Latest version: Version v3.27, 10.04.1994

Prerequisites

• Older version of IBM's resource editor - Needed if you want to ship DrDialog programs as .exe's or use the ResToRexx tool.

Add on packages

• CWHelp Class - Adds a simple help system.
• DrDialog Control - Add on for DrDialog that makes the dialogs more flexible and adds flyover help.

Issues

• The slider controls of DrDialog are known to be buggy, as a workaround you can use the scrollbars instead. Thanks to Klaus Staedtler for this information.

Object REXX

"There is a problem running DrDialog programs under Object REXX if they use DrsAide (as shipped) controls. Because Object REXX parses the entire file before running, many times syntax errors which would go undetected under "Classic" REXX are in fact detected. There is just such a syntax error in the DrsAide utility.

To fix the problem:

1. Open the DRSAIDE.RES file from the DrDialog File Menu option.
2. Double-Click the ICONBUTTON (the only control visible other than the DIALOG). The DrRexx Code editor should appear with the ICONBUTTON section open.
3. Click the "Drop-" tab and use the spin-button under the edit window to bring up the Class code.
4. At the very end, on its own line, type END. Save the file. And now everything should work."

Source: Thos Davis

Fix for Object REXX

• DrDlgFix.zip - Corrects a problem with the DrsAide tool and Object REXX.

Articles

• Douglas Clark: RAD Development with DrDialog

Tutorial

• DrDialog, or: How I learned to stop worrying and love REXX by Thomas Klein
  • Part 1 (Sep 2002)
  • Part 2 (Oct 2002)
  • Part 3 (Nov 2002)
  • Part 4 (Dec 2002)
  • Part 5 (Jan 2003)
  • Part 6 (Mar 2003)
  • Part 7 (Apr 2003)
  • Part 8 (May 2003)
  • Part 9 (Jul 2003)
  • Part 10 (Sep 2003)
  • Part 11 (Jan 2004)
  • Part 12 (Apr 2004)
  • Part 13 (Jun 2004)
  • Part 14 (Jun 2005)

Review

• Dr. Dialog Review by Paul Floyd (January 1998)

License

Discontinued freeware. Author David C. Morrill indicated that the source code of this program had been lost over time (2012-11-13). DrDialog was written in Oberon-2 using the HOPE Oberon programming environment that never got distributed outside of IBM anyway so would be of a limited use.

Author

• David C. Morrill

Links

• DrDialog
• The DrDialog documentation in PDF format.