[comp.sys.apple2] Hidden Dialog Input

STEIN@UCONNVM.BITNET (Alan Stein) (02/26/91)

I'd like to be able to enter text into a dialog box without it appearing
on the screen, in order to secretly enter a password.  Is there a reasonable
way of doing that?  (I'm using Orca/C.)

 __________________________________________________________
|                                                          |
| Alan H. Stein              | stein@uconnvm.bitnet        |
| Department of Mathematics  |                             |
| University of Connecticut  | Compu$erve  71545,1500      |
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JWANKERL@UTCVM.BITNET ("Josef W. Wankerl") (02/27/91)

On Tue, 26 Feb 91 08:31:47 EST Alan Stein said:
>I'd like to be able to enter text into a dialog box without it appearing
>on the screen, in order to secretly enter a password.  Is there a reasonable
>way of doing that?  (I'm using Orca/C.)

Sure -- just pull up a LineEdit control and set the password bit.
Everything typed to the control will appear as asterisks.




> __________________________________________________________
>|                                                          |
>| Alan H. Stein              | stein@uconnvm.bitnet        |
>| Department of Mathematics  |                             |
>| University of Connecticut  | Compu$erve  71545,1500      |
>| 32 Hillside Avenue         | GEnie       ah.stein        |
>| Waterbury, CT 06710        | SNET        (203) 757-1231  |
>|__________________________________________________________|

--
===> Josef W. Wankerl, Technical Editor for GS+ Magazine
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STEIN@UCONNVM.BITNET (Alan Stein) (02/27/91)

Thanks.

 __________________________________________________________
|                                                          |
| Alan H. Stein              | stein@uconnvm.bitnet        |
| Department of Mathematics  |                             |
| University of Connecticut  | Compu$erve  71545,1500      |
| 32 Hillside Avenue         | GEnie       ah.stein        |
| Waterbury, CT 06710        | SNET        (203) 757-1231  |
|__________________________________________________________|

dzimmerman@gnh-tff.cts.com (Daniel Zimmerman) (02/28/91)

>> I'd like to enter text into a dialog box without it appearing on the
>> screen...

Well, the LineEdit Extended Control supports a great little feature called a
"password field", which lets you do just that! Unfortunately, Extended Controls
are not really supported in dialogs. If you use NewWindow2 to make a
dialog-like box and TaskMaster to treat it modally, it will work, or you can
use the DTS FakeModalDialog routines (available from apple.com, I'm sure)...
Anyway, to make the LE control a "password field", just set the high-order bit
of the "maxSize" word in the control template to equal 1. The default character
to echo is "*" - to change it, put the ASCII value of the character you want to
echo in the "lePWChar" field of the LineEdit record for the control (the last
word in the LineEdit record, at offset $38).

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jlevitsky@gnh-applesauce.cts.com (Joshua Levitsky) (02/28/91)

>I'd like to be able to enter text into a dialog box without it appearing
on the screen, in oRDER TO SECRetly enter a password.  Is there a reasonable
way of doing that?  (I'm using Orca/C.)

Yes... you could set the text color to that of the background of the dialog box
then just change the color back after the code is entered. This is the least
painful way.
-Joshie EMT
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STEIN@UCONNVM.BITNET (Alan Stein) (02/28/91)

I thought about changing the text color, but couldn't tell from the
documentation how to do that.

The ItemTemplate contains a pointer to a color table, but I didn't see a
way of designating a particular color from that template for any part
of the line edit item.

 __________________________________________________________
|                                                          |
| Alan H. Stein              | stein@uconnvm.bitnet        |
| Department of Mathematics  |                             |
| University of Connecticut  | Compu$erve  71545,1500      |
| 32 Hillside Avenue         | GEnie       ah.stein        |
| Waterbury, CT 06710        | SNET        (203) 757-1231  |
|__________________________________________________________|

acmfiu@serss0.fiu.edu (ACMFIU) (03/01/91)

In article <9102261333.AA27504@apple.com> STEIN@UCONNVM.BITNET (Alan Stein) writes:
>I'd like to be able to enter text into a dialog box without it appearing
>on the screen, in order to secretly enter a password.  Is there a reasonable
>way of doing that?  (I'm using Orca/C.)

alan,
	do you have the developer sample source code disks from last year?
there was a program in it (i think either busybox or teach) that displayed
how to do this. i think this added capability is new for sys 5.0.x and
is documented in toolbox ref #3.

albert