# assign an event to a button **URL:** \ **Category:** Forum\ **Tags:** Adabas-Natural, Natural, Natural-Code-Samples, Natural-on-Windows-Unix\ **Created:** [January 27, 2018, 7:46am UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/assign-an-event-to-a-button/197935 "2018-01-27T07:46:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![PBTECO\_PBTECO](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/6f9a4e/32.png) [@PBTECO\_PBTECO](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/PBTECO_PBTECO)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2018, 7:46am UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/assign-an-event-to-a-button/197935/1 "2018-01-27T07:46:00Z")
hi everyone i want to assign a click event to a button after open a dialog on natural 5.1.1 how could i do that? i used this code to create button DEFINE DATA LOCAL 1 #NEW2 HANDLE OF pushbutton END-DEFINE PROCESS GUI ACTION ADD WITH PARAMETERS HANDLE-VARIABLE = #NEW2 TYPE = PUSHBUTTON NAME = #I STRING = ‘(Untitled)’ RECTANGLE-X = #J RECTANGLE-Y = 311 RECTANGLE-W = 78 RECTANGLE-H = 59 PARENT = #DLG$WINDOW END-PARAMETERS GIVING \*ERROR . ---
**Author:** ![Ralph\_Zbrog](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/techcommunity/user_avatar/techcommunity.softwareag.com/ralph_zbrog/32/78_2.png) [@Ralph\_Zbrog](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/Ralph_Zbrog)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2018, 5:21am UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/assign-an-event-to-a-button/197935/2 "2018-01-29T05:21:31Z")
Version 5 is too old for me to remember much about it. In Natural 8.3.8 I created a dialog and dropped a push button onto it from the Dialog Editor Insert toolbar. Then I selected Event Handlers from the context menu (right-click on the button). There I entered code to write a simple message (i.e. my event). Natural generated the following source code. Look for “write ‘pressed the button’”. ```auto /** DIALOG SOURCE 22D /*[ DEFINE DIALOG INFO **D* NATURAL Dialog Description 8.3.8.0 / 2018-01-28 20:17 /** EMPTY DIALOG COMMENT /*] END-DIALOG-INFO DEFINE DATA /*[ DEFINE DIALOG PARAMETERS PARAMETER 01 #DLG$PARENT HANDLE OF GUI BY VALUE /** EMPTY USER CODE SECTION /*[ DEFINE USING /*] END-USING /*] END-DIALOG-PARAMETERS /*[ DEFINE LOCAL DATA LOCAL /*[ DEFINE HANDLES 01 #DLG$WINDOW HANDLE OF WINDOW 01 #PB-1 HANDLE OF PUSHBUTTON /*] END-HANDLES /** EMPTY USER CODE SECTION /*[ DEFINE USING LOCAL USING NGULKEY1 LOCAL USING NGULFCT1 /*] END-USING /*] END-LOCAL-DATA END-DEFINE DEFINE SUBROUTINE #DLG$SUBR$CREATE$WINDOW /** DEFINE CONTROL #DLG$WINDOW PROCESS GUI ACTION ADD WITH PARAMETERS HANDLE-VARIABLE = #DLG$WINDOW TYPE = WINDOW STRING = '(Untitled)' STYLE = 'PZ' BITMAP-FILE-NAME = 'default.ico' PARENT = #DLG$PARENT CLIENT-DATA = *DIALOG-ID HORIZ-SCROLLABLE = FALSE VERT-SCROLLABLE = FALSE EVENT-QUEUEING = FALSE RECTANGLE-W = 865 RECTANGLE-H = 420 SCROLLRANGE-X = 208 SCROLLRANGE-Y = 117 VERSION = '08030800' SUPPRESS-ENTER-EVENT = SUPPRESSED SUPPRESS-LEAVE-EVENT = SUPPRESSED SUPPRESS-SIZE-EVENT = SUPPRESSED END-PARAMETERS GIVING *ERROR END-SUBROUTINE /** END-CONTROL DEFINE SUBROUTINE #DLG$SUBR$CREATE$CONTROLS /** DEFINE DIALOG ELEMENTS /*[ DEFINE CONTROL #PB-1 PROCESS GUI ACTION ADD WITH PARAMETERS HANDLE-VARIABLE = #PB-1 TYPE = PUSHBUTTON STRING = 'myPushbutton' RECTANGLE-X = 82 RECTANGLE-Y = 55 RECTANGLE-W = 126 RECTANGLE-H = 62 PARENT = #DLG$WINDOW END-PARAMETERS GIVING *ERROR /*] END-CONTROL END-SUBROUTINE /** END-DIALOG-ELEMENTS DEFINE SUBROUTINE #DLG$HANDLER$DEFAULT /** DEFINE EVENT DEFAULT OPTIONS 2 DEFAULT ;/** EMPTY USER CODE SECTION OPTIONS 3 END-SUBROUTINE /** END-EVENT /*[ DEFINE EVENT BEFORE-ANY OPTIONS 2 BEFORE-ANY ;/** EMPTY USER CODE SECTION OPTIONS 3 /*] END-EVENT DECIDE ON FIRST *CONTROL /** DEFINE ALL EVENTS /*[ DEFINE EVENTS FOR DIALOG VALUE NULL-HANDLE DECIDE ON FIRST *EVENT /*[ DEFINE EVENT OPEN VALUE 'OPEN' OPTIONS 2 BEFORE-OPEN ;/** EMPTY USER CODE SECTION OPTIONS 3 PERFORM #DLG$SUBR$CREATE$WINDOW /*] END-EVENT /*[ DEFINE EVENT AFTER-OPEN VALUE 'AFTER-OPEN' PERFORM #DLG$SUBR$CREATE$CONTROLS PROCESS GUI ACTION AFTER-CREATION WITH #DLG$WINDOW GIVING *ERROR PROCESS GUI ACTION RESET-ATTRIBUTES GIVING *ERROR OPTIONS 2 AFTER-OPEN ;/** EMPTY USER CODE SECTION OPTIONS 3 /*] END-EVENT /*[ DEFINE EVENT CLOSE VALUE 'CLOSE' OPTIONS 2 CLOSE ;/** EMPTY USER CODE SECTION OPTIONS 3 PROCESS GUI ACTION DELETE-WINDOW WITH #DLG$WINDOW GIVING *ERROR ESCAPE ROUTINE IMMEDIATE /*] END-EVENT NONE PERFORM #DLG$HANDLER$DEFAULT END-DECIDE /*] END-EVENTS /*[ DEFINE EVENTS FOR #PB-1 VALUE #PB-1 DECIDE ON FIRST *EVENT /*[ DEFINE EVENT CLICK VALUE 'CLICK' OPTIONS 2 CLICK write 'pressed the button' OPTIONS 3 /*] END-EVENT NONE PERFORM #DLG$HANDLER$DEFAULT END-DECIDE /*] END-EVENTS NONE PERFORM #DLG$HANDLER$DEFAULT END-DECIDE /** END-ALL-EVENTS /*[ DEFINE EVENT AFTER-ANY OPTIONS 2 AFTER-ANY ;/** EMPTY USER CODE SECTION OPTIONS 3 /*] END-EVENT END /** END-DIALOG-SOURCE ``` ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/53a042/32.png) [@Michael\_S](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/Michael_S)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2018, 8:21am UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/assign-an-event-to-a-button/197935/3 "2018-01-29T08:21:54Z")
If you are going for a dynamic approach (not using the build-in facilities of the dialog editor), you can catch the event in the BEFORE-ANY, AFTER-ANY or the IDLE events. The \*EVENT = ‘CLICK’ will indicate a click on any given GUI element that is clicked, so you need to identify which element was clicked. This can be done by checking if \*CONTROL = the button you want to handle: [in the AFTER-ANY event] if \*event = ‘CLICK’ and \*control = #mybutton print ‘My button was clicked’ newpage end-if … an even more dynamic approach would be to use CLIENT-KEY/-VALUE to determine which unique button was clicked: [in PARAMETERS when adding the button] CLIENT-KEY = ‘id’ CLIENT-VALUE = ‘myAction’ [define as local variable] 1 #focus handle of gui [in the AFTER-ANY event] if \*event = ‘CLICK’ #focus := \*control #focus.client-key := ‘id’ if #focus.client-value = ‘myAction’ print ‘The “myAction” button was clicked’ newpage end-if end-if ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/techcommunity/original/3X/c/d/cd19967bb605d28a72d77eb83a1cae22f3df2eb8.svg) [@system](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2021, 3:40pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/assign-an-event-to-a-button/197935/4 "2021-04-02T15:40:02Z")