Setting up a pre-selection of categories and variables for Dashboard users

[#1]

I need my dashboard to be fully flexible and allow users to pre-select:

 a- The reference category from the variable "Group"

 b - The variables on which to run the dashboard on.

Then, the dashboard to use these such the code knows that:

Ref = "name of reference group selected"
cols = { list of columns selected}

Is there a way to have a dialogue window populate with the categories of a variable and the names of the columns, that users then pick from, click OK and then the dashboard runs as normal?

Thanks

[#2]

Have a look at the column dialog or filter col selector functions to let the user pick a column (the following examples are from the Scripting Index):

Names Default To Here( 1 );
Open( "$SAMPLE_DATA/Consumer Preferences.jmp" );
Column Dialog(
	ex y = ColList( "Y", Min Col( 1 ), Max Col( 2 ), Data Type( "Numeric" ) ),
	ex x = ColList( "X", Max Col( 1 ), Modeling Type( {"Continuous", "Multiple Response"} ) ),
	Line Up( 2, Text Box( "Alpha" ), ex = EditNumber( .05 ), Text Box( "Beta" ), ey = EditText( "xyz" ) ),
	HList( cb = Check Box( "check", 1 ) ),
	HList( combo = Combo Box( "option1", "option2" ) ),
	HList( rb = RadioButtons( "a", "b" ) )
);

Names Default To Here( 1 );
dt = Open( "$SAMPLE_DATA/Big Class.jmp" );
New Window( "Col List Box Example", fontobj = lb = Filter Col Selector( width( 250 ) ) );

A radio box might help select levels of a column:

Names Default To Here( 1 );
dt = Open("$Sample_data/Big Class.jmp");
New Window( "Example", rb = Radio Box( associative array( dt:sex << get values ) << get keys ) );

[#3]

That is great, i've managed to set it up for my data, but two things I'm not too sure about now.

- is rb the selected item? can I then use it in the code:

oneway1 = dt << Oneway( Y( cols[1] ), X( :Group ), With Control( 1, {"rb"} ) )

- Can I set a button to say ACCEPT and then it closes the window?

[#4]

You could use rb << Get or rb << Get Selected.  Here is how I found that in the scripting index (available under the help menu):

As to closing the window, a web search for 'jmp new window get user input' took me to the link below which has an example to get you started:

Re: How do I display a text box asking for input from the user. 

[#5]

Thank you for the pointers. It is all looking very promising, I have two final questions on this, I did a search on the community and in the scripting guide, but I couldn't see answers so apologise for the basicness.

- Is there a way for users to select multiple options from the radio box?

- My list of columns is very long, and it would be helpful to have the list over 3 columns - is it possible to format the radiobox to display the options over multiple columns?

Thanks!

[#6]

You could use a check box instead which does allow multiple selections. As to showing that in multiple columns I don't know of an out-of-box method but you could subset the larger list and display a third of the list in separate check boxes, and then have your script look through the results of each.

Another option, if you want the user to select a column from a list of columns, check out the Column Dialog object. That might give you a quick way to create your whole launch window.