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====7. Advanced Syntax - make your code readable====

**Comments in your code**
Gtkdialog doesn't support comments in its xml code. But if we convert all comments before execution, it works. The reason why I use double hash (""##"") for my comments, is because colors in a ##<span>## tag might be defined as ##red## or ###FF0000##. The latter would be removed by using a single hash.

%%(language-ref)
XML='
<vbox> ##this is how to comment your xml code.
<text height-request="50"> ##force the text to take more space.
<label>Hello</label>
</text>
<hbox> ##hbox to align button to the right.
<button ok></button> ##button ok is fetched from the gtk stock.
</hbox>
</vbox>'

export GUI="`echo "$XML" | sed -e 's/##.*//'`"
gtkdialog -p GUI
%%

**Include code if...**
It is possible to build the gtkdialog out of many small pieces. Every piece is a variable and are put together when exporting the gtkdialog code. It is easy to think that a button should have different label depending on "//this or that//". Or like in the following example, - include a button if file/app/... exists. Instead of defining all these pieces before the actual gtkdialog code, it is much more human readable if you define all 'inside' the gtkdialog code.

%%(language-ref)
script='
<vbox>
<hbox>
<text>
<label>Yes button added if file /root/testfile exists</label>
</text>'
[ -f /root/testfile ;then script=${script}'<button yes></button>'
script=${script}'
<button no>
</button>
</hbox>
</vbox>'

export SCRIPT="$script"
gtkdialog --program=SCRIPT
%%

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==Categories==
CategoryGtkdialog