electron-better-dialog

Wrapper for the Electron showMessageBox function which works with button objects instead of indexes.

This was created to allow for dynamically created buttons without the worry of indexes, as well as to allow the buttons themselves to define the action they should invoke when clicked.

Vanilla Electron Dialog

dialog.showMessageBox(mainWindow, {
    message: 'Vanilla',
    buttons: ['Default Button', 'Cancel Button'],
    defaultId: 0, // bound to buttons array
    cancelId: 1 // bound to buttons array 
}, response => {
    if (response === 0) { // bound to buttons array
        console.dir('Default button clicked.');
    } else if (response === 1) { // bound to buttons array
        console.dir('Cancel button clicked.');
    }
});

Changing the order of the buttons array would also require a change of defaultId, cancelId and the callback body.

electron-bettter-dialog

showBetterMessageBox(mainWindow, {
    message: 'Better',
    betterButtons: [
        {
            label: 'Default Button',
            isDefault: true
        }, {
            label: 'Cancel Button',
            isCancel: true
        }
    ]
}, response => {
    if (response.isDefault) {
        console.dir('Default button clicked.');
    } else if (response.isCancel) {
        console.dir('Cancel button clicked.');
    }
});

Changing the order of the buttons has no effect on other code.

Install

$ npm install electron-better-dialog --save

Usage

Synchronous Dialog

import { showBetterMessageBox } from 'electron-better-dialog';

const syncResponse = showBetterMessageBox(mainWindow, {
    message: 'Sync',
    betterButtons: [
        {
            label: 'Default Button',
            isDefault: true
        }, {
            label: 'Cancel Button',
            isCancel: true
        }
    ]
});

if (syncResponse.isDefault) {
    console.dir('Default button clicked.');
} else if (syncResponse.isCancel) {
    console.dir('Cancel button clicked.');
}

Asynchronous Dialog

import { showBetterMessageBox } from 'electron-better-dialog';

showBetterMessageBox(mainWindow, {
    message: 'Async',
    betterButtons: [
        {
            label: 'Default Button',
            isDefault: true
        }, {
            label: 'Cancel Button',
            isCancel: true
        }, {
            label: 'Action Button',
            data: {
                arbitrary: true
            },
            action() {
                console.dir(`Button '${this.label}' clicked. Data: ${JSON.stringify(this.data)}`);
            }
        }
    ]
}, response => {
    if (response.action) {
        response.action();
    }
    if (response.isDefault) {
        console.dir('Default button clicked.');
    } else if (response.isCancel) {
        console.dir('Cancel button clicked.');
    }
});

API

showBetterDialog([browserWindow, ]options[, callback])

• browserWindow BrowserWindow (optional)
• options BetterMessageBoxOptions
• callback Function (optional)
  • response MessageBoxButton - The instance of the button that was selected.
  • checkboxChecked Boolean - The checked state of the checkbox if checkboxLabel was set. Otherwise false.

Shows a message box.

The browserWindow argument allows the dialog to attach itself to a parent window, making it modal.

When a callback is provided:

• Dialog will be shown asynchronously.
• Function will return void.
• Callback will be called with the instance of the selected MessageBoxButton.

When a callback is not provided:

• Dialog will be shown synchronously, blocking the process.
• Function will return the instance of the selected MessageBoxButton.

MessageBoxButton

• label String - Button display label.
• action Function (optional) - Optional function to attach to the button.
• isDefault Boolean (optional) - True if the button should be selected by default when the message box opens.
• isCancel Boolean (optional) - If true, this button will be selected when the message box is canceled via the Esc key.
• data Object (optional) - Optional data to attach to the button.

BetterMessageBoxOptions

Extends Electron's showMessageBox options.

• betterButtons MessageBoxButton[] - Array of buttons to display.
• message String - Content of the message box.
• type String (optional) - Can be "none", "info", "error", "question" or "warning". On Windows, "question" displays the same icon as "info", unless you set an icon using the "icon" option. On macOS, both "warning" and "error" display the same warning icon.
• defaultId Integer (optional) - Index of the button in the buttons array which will be selected by default when the message box opens.
• title String (optional) - Title of the message box, some platforms will not show it.
• detail String (optional) - Extra information of the message.
• checkboxLabel String (optional) - If provided, the message box will include a checkbox with the given label. The checkbox state can be inspected only when using callback.
• checkboxChecked Boolean (optional) - Initial checked state of the checkbox. false by default.
• icon NativeImage (optional)
• cancelId Integer (optional) - The index of the button to be used to cancel the dialog, via the Esc key. By default this is assigned to the first button with "cancel" or "no" as the label. If no such labeled buttons exist and this option is not set, 0 will be used as the return value or callback response. This option is ignored on Windows.
• noLink Boolean (optional) - On Windows Electron will try to figure out which one of the buttons are common buttons (like "Cancel" or "Yes"), and show the others as command links in the dialog. This can make the dialog appear in the style of modern Windows apps. If you don't like this behavior, you can set noLink to true.
• normalizeAccessKeys Boolean (optional) - Normalize the keyboard access keys across platforms. Default is false. Enabling this assumes & is used in the button labels for the placement of the keyboard shortcut access key and labels will be converted so they work correctly on each platform, & characters are removed on macOS, converted to _ on Linux, and left untouched on Windows. For example, a button label of Vie&w will be converted to Vie_w on Linux and View on macOS and can be selected via Alt-W on Windows and Linux.