Dialog Manager

Introduction

Your application can use the Dialog Manager to alert users to unusual situations and to solicit information from users. For example, in some situations your application might not be able to carry out a command normally, and in other situations the user must specify multiple parameters before your application can execute a command. For circumstances like these, the Macintosh user interface includes these two features:

• alerts–including alert sounds and alert boxes–which warn the user whenever an unusual or potentially undesirable situation occurs within your application

• dialog boxes, which allow the user to provide additional information or to modify settings before your application carries out a command

Virtually all applications need to implement alerts and dialog boxes. To avoid needless development effort, use the Dialog Manager to implement alerts and to create most dialog boxes. It is possible, however–and sometimes desirable–to bypass the Dialog Manager and instead use Window Manager, Control Manager, QuickDraw, and Event Manager routines to create or respond to events in complex dialog boxes.