# Links

A link is an interface action which is performed when a button is pressed and can be used to prototype the behavior of your interface.

There are four types of link action - show, hide, enable and disable. Links can be created from buttons to individual widgets or to other dialogs.

For example, suppose there exists a 'Cut' and a 'Paste' button, then an 'enable' link can be added so that pressing the Cut button enables the Paste button.

Alternatively, a 'show' link can be added to a button so that a further dialog can be displayed onto the screen.

Buttons can have many links, so that in the example, both the Paste button and the secondary dialog can be enabled and shown as a result of pressing the button.

In Microsoft Windows Mode, if a destination widget cannot be mapped through to an object on Microsoft Windows, the Add button is pink. You can still add the link but it will only be effective on Motif. The entry in the list of links will be pink to indicate this. Making the destination widget a class (if this is allowed) or putting the widget inside another (such as a Frame) which is an object on Microsoft Windows are ways of overcoming this.

The Link Editor dialog can be used to add such links; the dialog can be called by pressing the Edit links option found within the Widget menu at the top of the WorkShop Visual display.

NOTES

Unfortunately, in Motif, creating a link from, say, a Cascade Button to an ancestor of the button can result in the application crashing. For these reasons, WorkShop Visual forbids the creation of such ancestor links.

See also:

- Link Editor dialog
- Microsoft Windows Mode
- About WorkShop Visual