The Arbortext XUI (XML-based User Interface) technology lets an application programmer create, display, manipulate, and modify dialog boxes in real time by writing and modifying XML documents. All aspects of a dialog box, including controls, layout, and event listeners, can be stored in a single XUI XML document. The document type for XUI XML documents is Arbortext-path\doctypes\xui\xui.dtd. The Arbortext XUI technology is influenced by the Mozilla XML User Interface Language (XUL) and its ongoing development (www.mozilla.org/projects/xul/xul.html).

Each control in a XUI dialog box is associated with an element in an XML document. For example, to add a check box control to the dialog box, insert a checkbox element in to the XUI document. A control’s properties are represented by the attributes of the element. For example, the label attribute of the checkbox element specifies the label of the check box control in the dialog box. The checked attribute of the element represents the current status of the check box control.

The layout of XUI dialog boxes is automatically managed by ArbortextEditor. The type of the layout and the properties of the layout are specified in the XUI XML document by inserting layout related elements and attributes. XUI layout algorithms arrange layout by considering the size of each control and ensuring that the dialog box is displayed in a balanced manner after resizing.

ArbortextEditor makes use of W3C XML Events to monitor the activities in the dialog box. The W3C XML Events specification can be found at www.w3.org/TR/2001/WD-xml-events-20011026. Event listening scripts can be inserted in the XUI XML document as the content of an element representing an event listener.

A set of AOM interfaces manipulate XUI dialog boxes. For example, the Window interface represents the frame window of the XUI dialog box. You can use the hide method to hide the dialog box, the setTitle method to set the window’s title, and so on. Refer to Manipulating XUI Dialog Boxes using the AOM for more details.

XUI dialog boxes can be displayed as standard dialog boxes (overlaying an application or document), and they can be displayed embedded in a document in the Edit pane in Arbortext Editor. Refer to Embedding XUI Dialog Box Controls in a Document for details on displaying XUI dialog boxes within documents. Standard dialog boxes with docking enabled can be dragged into a Arbortext Editor edit window and docked on one edge of the edit window. Dialog boxes with docking enabled can contain all controls that are allowed in a standard dialog box except for toolbars and menubars.