Repeating UI tasks with UIAccessor and DialogMonitorOPS

#1

Hi all i’m just trying to get max to cycle through some basic max tasks. in this case i want to just use the freeze transform tool without having to copy some of the code.

i have bee trying to get the DialogMonitorOps to work properly but its seems to not even recognize the code PressButtonByName or even PressDefault.

i thought the process for doing this was to call what dialogue is open and the press the defualt button eg “yes” on freezeTranform and by name is “Yes”

anyway he is a loop. this is not really how i would use this but i want to see if i can get it to work on one button press.

for myhelpers in selection do
(
	
	macros.run "Animation Tools" "FreezeTransform" 
	--UIAccessor.PressDefaultButton 
	WindowHandle = DialogMonitorOPS.GetWindowHandle()
	UIAccessor.PressButtonByName WindowHandle "Yes"
	true
		
)

anyhelp would be greatly apreciated as there is not alot of help or referance of using these simple operations.

cheers

john

#2

You have a number of issues John. The first is, the dialog window is what is called a “blocking” event.

That is, you code will “stop” running UNTIL the dialog is dismissed. So once you call “macros.run “Animation Tools” “FreezeTransform””, nothing else is executed UNTIL AFTER the dialog is dismissed, one way or the other, so you attempt to press the default button is not been executed.

What you need to do is setup a listener/callback, which is notified when a dialog appears and react to it then.

For example…


	-- Unregister any previous listeners...keep things tidy
	DialogMonitorOPS.unRegisterNotification id:#eyeInTheSky

	-- my function for handeling the dialog
	fn mf = (
		 -- Get the window handle of the current dialog
		local windowHandle = DialogMonitorOPS.GetWindowHandle()
		
		-- Make sure this is a valid handle... 	   
		if (windowHandle != 0) then (
			
	          -- Get the title of the window
			local title = UIAccessor.GetWindowText WindowHandle
			
	          -- Make sure it's the "freeze transforms" dialog
			if (title == "Freeze Transforms") then (

	                -- Dismiss the dialog via it's default value ("yes")
				UIAccessor.PressDefaultButton()
				
			)
			
		)
		
		return true
	)

	-- register the callaback
	DialogMonitorOPS.RegisterNotification mf id:#eyeInTheSky
	-- enable the monitor
	DialogMonitorOPS.Enabled = true

	-- Run the script
	macros.run "Animation Tools" "FreezeTransform"
	
	-- Clean up
	DialogMonitorOPS.unRegisterNotification id:#eyeInTheSky
	-- You should only call this if you are not performing any other
	-- monitoring processes...
	DialogMonitorOPS.Enabled = false

Hope that helps
Shane

#3

thanks man a great help it makes perfects scence why its not working now. just one question though. when you all the ID :#eyeInTheSky is that a call function for the DialogMonitorOPS and are there others and if so where do you find them. i’m just trying to understand all the parts of the code and that sorta dosent make scence unless its the fuction that look spacificaly for dialogues in the case the freeze transform.

cheers

john

#4

The id parameter is an “application context” flag. That is, I can group a number of callbacks under the same id and when I’m ready, un-register all of them simultanously.

This is a design shared with all the callback mechanisms in max.

Imagine you have two callback functions, one dismiss an okay/cancel dialog, the other fills out a form and clicks okay.

With the idea flag, I know I can group the two callbacks together and unregister them in a single call, without effecting the rest of the application or other scripts.

Soooo, the ID parameter can be anything you want, I actually used the value from the example in the docs.

…that should just about confuse the subject nicely :wink: …

Shane

#5

hay man thanks for that makes scence now. got it working perfectly. its easy to work out new ways to use this within a script now i have a good example of how it works

thanks again for all the help.

cheers

john

#6

Pleasure :slight_smile:

Have to admit, when I first started using it, it took some work to get it to work to.

Shane

#7

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