Hiya Frog,

A Related Module For Ya

This does not answer your question, but I have a module that works like a 'generic argument grabber' using Tk for exactly the kind of scenario you mentioned. Read further if you (or anyone else) are interested.

The Scenario

You already have a working perl script and you simply want a fast, easy, and flexible way to supply arguments to that script in a 'novice-user-friendly' 'point-and-click' kinda way.

The Background

If you are familiar with VBScript or JavaScript, you probably have heard of the *input box* function, which simply pops up a quick-and-dirty text box for user input. This is useful, but it suffers many limitations:

• It only allows a 'textbox' input control
• It only allows a single input control
• It offers no flexibility for 'morphing' the input dialog

My Module: Synopsis

Suppose you have a script 'CreateNewEmployee.pl' that requires some input arguments, and you want an input dialog to let the novice user supply the arguments. Here is some sample code ...

### Example 000
my  $get_args   = {};
    $get_args->{fname}  = '';
    $get_args->{lname}  = '';
    $get_args->{title}  = '';
    $get_args->{dept }  = '';
my $usr_input   =  &TkDataDialog($get_args,'data_rec');

&DoCreateTheEmployeeFunction(
   $usr_input->{fname},
   $usr_input->{lname},
   $usr_input->{title},
   $usr_input->{dept },
);
[download]

This example pops up a dialog that lets the user supply the specified values in a predictable looking input form. You can also use compact syntax to accomplish the same thing.

### Example 001 (compact syntax)
my $usr_input   =  &TkDataDialog(
    'fname lname title dept',
    'fld_list',);

&DoCreateTheEmployeeFunction(
   $usr_input->{fname},
   $usr_input->{lname},
   $usr_input->{title},
   $usr_input->{dept },
);
[download]

My Module: Motivation

I wrote this to solve exactly the kind of problem you are talking about, and because I couldn't find anything on CPAN that matched my requirements closely enough.

Feature Highlights

• Ability to specify Input Dialog using alternate syntax styles (eg XML, 'CSS-similar', quote words, perl hashref)
• Ability to specify any number of input fields
• Ability to specify different types of input controls (default is the plain-vanilla input box, but you can also use 'select list' or 'textarea')
• Ability to specify Caption (aka Field label, aka 'friendly name'), Default Value, and Preset Option List for each input field
• Ability to specify the order in which the input fields should appear on the input form
• Ability to do all this stuff in a single function call without having to learn Tk

Feature Lowlights

• No ability to control the placement of widgets within the frame
• No ability to add 'tooltips' or help that show the user the semantics behind each input field. (although if I knew enough Tk I'd put this in)

This code is just for those cases where you want a quick and dirty way to get input of a simple data record (aka name value pairs) and you dont really care about the exact appearance of the Tk window.

My Module: Dependencies

use Tk;
use Tk::BrowseEntry;
use Tk::DialogBox;
use XML::Twig;      ## to support xml-dialog syntax format
use CSS::Tiny;      ## to support css-like dialog syntax
use Data::Dumper;   ## only used for debugging and tests
[download]