Modal Dialog won't close before tasks complete..

Question

Hi all,
Basic, but quite infuriating problem. Because Illustrator doesn't allow palette type windows, nothing can happen whilst the dialog is open. So, I've been using scripts I wrote over six months ago now for producing sets of scale elevations of my designs with filled out title-blocks etc.. Which have literally saved me a good half-hour per drawing set I need to produce.
The time has come for a test function for one of the parameters in my dialog though, because at the moment it requires careful judgement to guestimate the number and a failure means a lot of undoing (deleting a dozen files that the script creates once it starts etc).
So I've coded in a test button into my dialog, setup the callback handler onClick and tested everything, and the sequence of events I would like to occur is as follows;
Dialog closes - dlg.close()
My Scaling operation occurs
The script pauses for three seconds
then undoes the action - app.undo()
and reopens the dialog - dlg.show()
Every one of these events is tried and tested.. But they occur out of order when I run the script because each action runs at a different rate. setTimeout also doesn't work in Adobe's javascript (at least not in Illustrator), so I can't individually delay items.
So I've been testing bits in isolation to troubleshoot.. And I'm most concerned that the dialog close before any actions run - as this seems to cause the hold-up. A friend who is far more adept than I tells me it's because the dialog takes ownership, and as such the script dies if the dialog closes. If this is the case, is there a way I can create a false parent or prevent the dialog from doing this?
Try this code to see what I mean - clicking test should close the dialog, pause for three seconds and display its message.
If you comment out the while and if statements and their respective closing braces, you'll see that the dialog holds before closing. That code is there to ensure it closes before doing anything.
You should run this from Extendscript so you can halt it - else it will loop indefinitely. Note that Extendscript does behave differently; Illustrator halts when you click test, Extendscript appears to close the dialog but does nothing thereafter, however it still loops.
var test;
// Pause Function
function pause(msec)
var done = null;
var date = new Date();
var curDate = null;
do curDate = new Date();
while(curDate-date < msec);
var done = 1;
return done;
dlg = new Window('dialog', 'Parameter Entry', [0,0,480,384]);
dlg.center();
dlg.testField = dlg.add('panel', [20,65,460,105], 'Scale Factor');
dlg.testField.titleEt = dlg.testField.add('button', [385,5,420,25], 'Test', {name: 'testButton'});
dlg.add('button', [315,337,385,360], 'OK', {name: 'ok'});
dlg.add('button', [395,337,465,360], 'Cancel', {name: 'cancel'});
function testButtonOnClick()
dlg.closeresult = dlg.close(1);
while (dlg.closeresult < 1) {
if (dlg.closeresult == 1) {
pause(3000);
alert('If you can make this display - email me!');
// TEST SEQUENCE (CLOSE DIALOG, SCALE IMAGE, 3SEC PAUSE, UNDO, REOPEN DIALOG)
dlg.testField.testButton.onClick = testButtonOnClick;
dlg.result = dlg.show();
if (dlg.result == 1) { // OK
// MAIN PROGRAM CODE

Answer 1

Erm, well, I'd say that your nested loop will have 100 iterations. I assume you are missing a break statement somewhere but as I don't know your application...
One other observation - surely the if statement (in the else if) is not required? Either something is equals or it is not?
Whoops - sorry - 81 iterations as pointed out below!
Edited by: Tom.Sanders on 12-Apr-2008 19:37