CreateFromXML Method

Description

Creates a dialog from an XML resource file.

Syntax

Public Function CreateFromXML( _
    ByVal XMLString As String, _
    ByVal Section As String, _
    Optional ByVal Parameters As Variant _
) As Boolean

Parameters

XMLString: The contents of an XML file. This string must contain the entire contents of the XML file.
Section: Name of the XML resource to load. This should be the section that contains the dialog you want to load.
Parameters: Values to use in the text descriptions of the dialog. More than one parameter can be passed in and can be stored in a string array. These values will be inserted into any text portion of the dialog that contains a % followed by a number. The number corresponds to a parameter in the array and starts with 1.

For example, 3 parameters are used in the content section of this dialog:

File Download
Do you want to open %3 or save this file?
Name: %1
Type: %2
From: %3

The code to set up the parameters would look like this:

Dim Params(3) As String  
Params(0) = "SampleFileName.txt"  
Params(1) = "Text Document"  
Params(2) = "http://www.Codejock.com"

taskDialog.CreateFromXML LoadDialogs, "Dialogs/Dialog[@Name='Dialog007']", Params

Or you can do it like this:

taskDialog.CreateFromXML LoadDialogs, "Dialogs/Dialog[@Name='Dialog007']", Array("SampleFileName.txt", "Text Document", "http://www.Codejock.com")

Remarks

You can use a utility such as TDPad (TDPad) to design and create task dialogs that are stored in an XML file that can be loaded at any time. For example, the dialog below was created using TDPad:

XML Dialog Example

Example

Example XML Dialog

Below is the XML to create a dialog that will accept 3 parameters.

<FileDownload>
    <Title>File Download</Title>
    <Message>Do you want to open %3 or save this file?</Message>
    <Content>
        <Name>%1</Name>
        <Type>%2</Type>
        <From>%3</From>
    </Content>
    <Button>
        <Open>&Open</Open>
        <Save>&Save</Save>
    </Button>
    <Checkbox>&Always ask before open</Checkbox>
    <Warning>While files from the Internet can be useful, some files can potentially harm your computer. If you do not trust the source, do not open or save this file. What's the risk?</Warning>
</FileDownload>

Load From XML File (Visual Basic)

This code will load and display the task dialog in the XML code above.

taskDialog.Reset  
taskDialog.CommonButtons = 0  

Dim Params(3) As String  
Params(0) = "SampleFileName.txt"  
Params(1) = "Text Document"  
Params(2) = "http://www.Codejock.com"  

taskDialog.CreateFromXML LoadDialogs, "Dialogs/Dialog[@Name='Dialog007']", Params  
'taskDialog.CreateFromXML LoadDialogs, "Dialogs/Dialog[@Name='Dialog007']", Array("SampleFileName.txt", "Text Document", "http://www.Codejock.com")  

taskDialog.ShowDialog  

Function LoadDialogs() As String  
    On Error Resume Next  

    Dim Dialogs As String  
    Dim FreeF As Integer, sFile As String  

    ' XML string will be loaded from the file.  
    sFile = App.Path & "\Dialogs.xml"  
    FreeF = FreeFile  
    Dialogs = Space(FileLen(sFile))  
    Open sFile For Binary As #FreeF  
    Get #FreeF, , Dialogs  
    Close #FreeF  
    On Error Goto 0  

    LoadDialogs = Dialogs  
End Function