Enable and Disable function with a GUI checkbox (CHECKED/UNCHECKED)

[Soil_Person]

Hi all, I am trying to enable a function TestFunction1() when a GUI checkbox $AnalysisCheckbox is CHECKED, and disable when checkbox is UNCHECKED. Needs to occur once the 'Start' button is pressed. Any ideas? I can't find anything on this. Thanks in advance. 

 

Code below: 

#include <MsgBoxConstants.au3>
#include <GUIConstantsEx.au3>

#Region ### START Koda GUI section ### Form= V2.0
Global $WindowTitle = GUICreate("TEST", 300, 200, -1, -1)
Global $AnalysisCheckbox = GUICtrlCreateCheckbox("Enable/Disable Function X", 10, 10, 300, 50)
GUICtrlSetState(-1, $GUI_CHECKED)
GUICtrlSetFont(-1, 14, 400, 0, "Georgia")
Global $StartButton = GUICtrlCreateButton("Start", 10, 70, 100, 100)
GUICtrlSetFont(-1, 14, 800, 0, "Georgia")
GUICtrlSetBkColor(-1, 0x00FF00)

GUISetState(@SW_SHOW)
#EndRegion ### END Koda GUI section ###

While 1
    $nMsg = GUIGetMsg()
    Switch $nMsg
        Case $GUI_EVENT_CLOSE
            Exit
        Case $GUI_EVENT_CLOSE
            Exit
        Case $StartButton
            ExitLoop
        Case $AnalysisCheckbox
            If GUICtrlRead ($AnalysisCheckbox) = 1 Then
                MsgBox(0,"","Enable Function")
            ElseIf GUICtrlRead ($AnalysisCheckbox) =4 Then
                MsgBox(0,"","Disable Function")
            EndIf
    EndSwitch
WEnd

TestFunction1()
TestFunction2()

Func TestFunction1()
    MsgBox(0,"","TestFunction 1 TEXT")
EndFunc
Func TestFunction2()
    MsgBox(0,"","TestFunction 2 TEXT")
EndFunc

[Jos]

Just look at the example in the HelpfIle for GUICtrlCreateCheckbox() and you have your answer how this needs to be solved.  

Jos

[Soil_Person]

Thanks, Jos

[Soil_Person]

Having a good look at the help file, gets me no where. I just can't understand it. I can kind get how it is asking for a return number from the checkbox, but the 'BitAND' thing lost me. 

[Sidley]

The _IsChecked() function returns a numeric value. For binary (true/false) answers, for example "If _IsChecked($idCheckbox)", we want a return of 0 (false) or 1 (true). However, GUICtrlRead returns a 1 if the checkbox is checked, and 4 if the box is unchecked. Don't know how familiar you are with bitwise operations, but the BitAND compares the returned value (1 or 4) to $GUI_CHECKED (1) and if they are the same the function returns 1, if not returns 0.

A similar result is is obtained using the following modification to the example, without the BitAND (Uncomment line 24 to see the return value):

expandcollapse popup

#include <GUIConstantsEx.au3>
#include <MsgBoxConstants.au3>

Example()

Func Example()
    ; Create a GUI with various controls.
    Local $hGUI = GUICreate("Example", 300, 200)

    ; Create a checkbox control.
    Local $idCheckbox = GUICtrlCreateCheckbox("Standard Checkbox", 10, 10, 185, 25)
    Local $idButton_Close = GUICtrlCreateButton("Close", 210, 170, 85, 25)

    ; Display the GUI.
    GUISetState(@SW_SHOW, $hGUI)

    ; Loop until the user exits.
    While 1
        Switch GUIGetMsg()
            Case $GUI_EVENT_CLOSE, $idButton_Close
                ExitLoop

            Case $idCheckbox
;~              MsgBox($MB_SYSTEMMODAL, "Test", GUICtrlRead($idCheckbox))
                If (_IsChecked($idCheckbox) = $GUI_CHECKED) Then             
                    MsgBox($MB_SYSTEMMODAL, "", "The checkbox is checked.", 0, $hGUI)
                ElseIf (_IsChecked($idCheckbox) = $GUI_UNCHECKED) Then
                    MsgBox($MB_SYSTEMMODAL, "", "The checkbox is not checked.", 0, $hGUI)
                EndIf

        EndSwitch
    WEnd

    ; Delete the previous GUI and all controls.
    GUIDelete($hGUI)
EndFunc   ;==>Example

Func _IsChecked($idControlID)
    Return GUICtrlRead($idControlID)
EndFunc   ;==>_IsChecked

 

Edited June 4, 2020 by Sidley
Changed to single '=' as per Melba23's suggestion

[Melba23]

Sidley,

There is no need to use the "==" operator in your comparisons - a single "=" will suffice. The double version is for comparing strings with case sensitivity and here you are comparing integers. See here for more details: https://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/docs/intro/lang_operators.htm

M23 

[Sidley]

Hangover from C#, which I've been doing a lot more of recently 🙂

[careca]

Why not check directly, without yet another function?

Case $idCheckbox
If GUICtrlRead($idCheckbox) = $GUI_CHECKED Then
MsgBox($MB_SYSTEMMODAL, "", "The checkbox is checked.", 0, $hGUI)
Else
MsgBox($MB_SYSTEMMODAL, "", "The checkbox is not checked.", 0, $hGUI)
EndIf

 

Edited June 4, 2020 by careca

[Sidley]

42 minutes ago, careca said:

Why not check directly, without yet another function?

Same thing, I'm not adding another function. The point of the post was to show what the BitAND was doing, which was what @Soil_Person was having trouble understanding.

[TheSaint]

Not sure if the following addresses what is really behind the OP's question, but here goes.

When I first started trying to interrupt functions, I learnt about and used the Adlib functions, but that was imperfect ... for instance, Adlib stops when a MsgBox is running or when doing some kind of query where you are waiting for a response. I then gravitated to a small secondary STOP button floating GUI and executable that wrote to an INI file, that the first program checked repeatedly in the function. That worked much better, but of course that means two EXE files.

What I discovered one day, quite by accident, was that you can use a Checkbox to achieve what you want. Not because you click the checkbox and you get an instant value returned which you can act on, you don't until the function has finished. But you can use GUICtrlRead in your function code at various intervals, to check the state of that Checkbox, regardless of any value change. So instead of doing INI write and read to determine whether to interrupt a function or not, I just check the state of a checkbox using GUICtrlRead.

Of course that won't help those who have the text on a START button changed to STOP when they start some function code, and want to have that button stop the function. But having a STOP checkbox alongside the START button, works really well ... so long as you regularly poll the state of that checkbox using GUICtrlRead.

Note, that the checkbox does not solve the MsgBox or the system waiting for a response issue, but you can set it (enable it) at almost any time, and you can avoid click timing issues due to delayed button response.

Edited June 4, 2020 by TheSaint

[TheDcoder]

5 hours ago, Sidley said:

The point of the post was to show what the BitAND was doing, which was what @Soil_Person was having trouble

I agree.

@Soil_Person A BitAND operation in this case just checks for the existence of a flag in a "magic" number, to understand how this works first you have to learn how binary works, then bit-operations are the next step. There are many tutorials and sources you can use to learn, however it is not necessary for you to understand how it works to use it

I happened to have made a very simple function, which allows you to check if a flag exists in a magic number, you can use this instead of the BitAND function:

; #FUNCTION# ====================================================================================================================
; Name ..........: IsMgcNumPresent
; Description ...: Checks if a number is a present in a number (Magic numbers aka Powers of 2)
; Syntax ........: IsMgcNumPresent($iNumber, $iMagicNumber)
; Parameters ....: $iNumber             - Number to check if it exists in $iMagicNumber.
;                  $iMagicNumber        - The number which might contain $iNumber.
; Return values .: Success: True
;                  Failure: False
; Author ........: Damon Harris (TheDcoder)
; Modified ......:
; Remarks .......:
; Related .......:
; Link ..........: https://git.io/vPFjk
; Example .......: Yes, see IsMgcNumPresent_Example.au3
; ===============================================================================================================================
Func IsMgcNumPresent($iNumber, $iMagicNumber)
    Return BitAND($iMagicNumber, $iNumber) = $iNumber
EndFunc

Example for reading checkbox state:

; This function will return True if the passed checkbox is checked
Func IsCheckedbox($idBox)
    Local $iState = GUICtrlRead($idBox)
    Return IsMgcNumPresent($GUI_CHECKED, $iState)
EndFuc

 

[mikell]

4 hours ago, TheSaint said:

I just check the state of a checkbox using GUICtrlRead.

Personally as a CB acts like a button, I use WM_COMMAND 

#include <GUIConstantsEx.au3>
#include <WindowsConstants.au3>

Global $stop = 0, $exit = 0

GUICreate("My GUI", 200, 100) 
$label = GUICtrlCreateLabel("", 30, 20, 20, 20)
$label2 = GUICtrlCreateLabel("I'm gone", 60, 20, 80, 20)
$btn = GUICtrlCreateCheckbox("stop", 10, 50, 50, 20)
$btn2 = GUICtrlCreateButton("exit", 120, 50, 50, 20)
GUISetState()  

GUIRegisterMsg($WM_COMMAND, "_WM_COMMAND")

For $i = 1 to 1000
  While $stop and not $exit
       Sleep(10)
  Wend
  If $exit Then Exitloop
  GuiCtrlSetData($label, $i)
  Sleep(300)
Next
Msgbox(0,"", "Exit !")

Func _WM_COMMAND($hWnd, $Msg, $wParam, $lParam)
 #forceref $hWnd, $Msg, $lParam
 Switch BitAND($wParam, 0x0000FFFF)
    Case $btn
        $stop =  not $stop
        GuiCtrlSetData($label2, $stop ? "Hey, I'm here !" : "I'm gone")  
        GuiCtrlSetData($btn, $stop ? "start" : "stop")  
     Case $btn2
        $exit = 1
EndSwitch
  Return 'GUI_RUNDEFMSG'
EndFunc

 

[Zedna]

https://www.autoitscript.com/wiki/FAQ#How_can_I_test_if_checkbox_.2F_radiobutton_is_checked.3F

EDIT:

expandcollapse popup

#include <MsgBoxConstants.au3>
#include <GUIConstantsEx.au3>

Global $enabled_func1 = True

#Region ### START Koda GUI section ### Form= V2.0
Global $WindowTitle = GUICreate("TEST", 300, 200, -1, -1)
Global $AnalysisCheckbox = GUICtrlCreateCheckbox("Enable/Disable Function X", 10, 10, 300, 50)
GUICtrlSetState(-1, $GUI_CHECKED)
GUICtrlSetFont(-1, 14, 400, 0, "Georgia")
Global $StartButton = GUICtrlCreateButton("Start", 10, 70, 100, 100)
GUICtrlSetFont(-1, 14, 800, 0, "Georgia")
GUICtrlSetBkColor(-1, 0x00FF00)

GUISetState(@SW_SHOW)
#EndRegion ### END Koda GUI section ###

While 1
    $nMsg = GUIGetMsg()
    Switch $nMsg
        Case $GUI_EVENT_CLOSE
            Exit
        Case $GUI_EVENT_CLOSE
            Exit
        Case $StartButton
            ExitLoop
        Case $AnalysisCheckbox
            $enabled_func1 = IsChecked($AnalysisCheckbox)
            If $enabled_func1 Then
                MsgBox(0,"","Enable Function")
            Else
                MsgBox(0,"","Disable Function")
            EndIf
    EndSwitch
WEnd

TestFunction1()
TestFunction2()

Func TestFunction1()
    If Not $enabled_func1 Then Return
    MsgBox(0,"","TestFunction 1 TEXT")
EndFunc
Func TestFunction2()
    MsgBox(0,"","TestFunction 2 TEXT")
EndFunc

Func IsChecked($control)
    Return BitAND(GUICtrlRead($control), $GUI_CHECKED) = $GUI_CHECKED
EndFunc   ;==>IsChecked

 

Edited June 5, 2020 by Zedna

[TheSaint]

On 6/5/2020 at 1:56 AM, mikell said:

Personally as a CB acts like a button, I use WM_COMMAND 

Goodo, but I'm not using it as a button really ... because it is not about a click response, but rather a state check.

I don't know enough to know the full difference between OnEvent like you are using and Adlib, which I have used often in the past.

The issue I mostly get around with using the GUICtrlRead function, is that of accidental or double clicking, which can require some elaborate code to work-around ... usually occurs due to system delays, and what I call Button Memory, which I am sure we have all experienced. Using GUICtrlRead means that you aren't relying on a button push being recognized by the system.

By Button Memory, I mean you got no visible clue that the button got clicked, because the system is too busy doing something else, but when some seconds later it responds, it recalls you clicked the button and acts accordingly. However, a user or even yourself, might meanwhile think you did not click properly, so click again, and so the system sees two clicks when it returns, so you get a STOP swiftly followed by an unwanted START again.

Edited June 5, 2020 by TheSaint