A user cannot interact with the graphics screen while a dialog box is active.
If you want to allow a user to select an object or pick a point from the graphics screen before a dialog box has been closed, you must close the dialog box momentarily so that the user can interact with the screen and perform the action. This is known as hiding a dialog box. Once the action is complete, you need to restore the dialog box.
Hiding a dialog box is the same as ending it with done_dialog, except your callback function must use the done_dialog status argument to indicate that the dialog box is hidden—as opposed to ended or canceled. Set status to an application-defined value. The start_dialog function returns the application-defined status when the dialog box disappears. Your program must then examine the status returned by start_dialog and determine what to do next.
When the action of a button tile causes a dialog box to be hidden, you should not contain an ellipsis or series of three dots. Instead, use a space followed by a less-than symbol ( < ) in the label. When the dialog box hides itself, a prompt should be displayed that explains what the user is expected to do. In most cases, you will use one of the getXXX functions to request the desired input from the user. These functions have an argument with which you can specify a prompt.
After the user provides a valid response to the requested input, the dialog box should reappear and provide feedback to the user that they were successful in providing input. This feedback could be new information in an edit box, an updated list box, a text message that indicates the status, or a combination of these.