Review of Controls

Dialog Boxes

A Dialog Box is a square or rectangular window whose main role is to carry, hold, or host, other windows. By itself, a dialog box means nothing. The other objects displayed on it define its role. Like a dialog box, the types of objects whose role is to host other objects are called containers. Therefore, the primary role of a dialog box is as a container. wDisplaying a dialog box depends on the instructions you are given. A dialog box is made of two main sections. On top, it displays a title bar. The left side of the title bar displays a sentence as the title of the dialog box. This group of words is also called the caption. Each dialog box is called by its title. Therefore, if the title displays Employees Registration, then the dialog box is called the Employees Registration Dialog Box. We will use the same naming convention in our lessons.
On the right section of the title bar, a normal dialog box would display only the system Close button or . By convention, a dialog box cannot be minimized or maximized. Therefore, it doesn't have those system buttons.
Sometimes, a dialog box will have a button with a question mark. This is called the Help button. A dialog box equipped with this button indicates that you can get quick help on the items displayed on the dialog box. While the behaviors of the system buttons seen in previous lessons are defined and controlled by the operating system, the person who creates a dialog box and equip it with the Help button also defines what happens if you click that Help button.
The main section of a dialog box can be referred to as its body (programmers call it the Client Area). This is the area where the objects the dialog box is hosting are positioned. There is no predefined directive nor a restriction on what types of objects a dialog box can hold. It is left to the programmer to decide.