# Ask

The Ask statement is used to interact with a running action. In its default configuration you specify a prompt message to be displayed in the Action Pending Window. When the prompt dialog is displayed you can choose to cancel the action or set the action's test state to true or false. The prompt is only issued once per set of files when the action is not executing in Grouped Mode.

You can provide simple markup for the text specifying colours, bold and italic. The markup sequences are described in Common Prompt Markup Functionality. Note that when using markup sequences the colour specified in the colour control is ignored. Further, markup sequences are only parsed when the display setting is Standard.

The supplied prompt text may contain any of the escape sequences described in Escape Sequences. The prompt is a multi line scrolling area.

You can elect to issue a beep with the prompt.

You can configure up to four buttons. See Configuring Buttons on Prompt Statements for more information.

You can optionally display the step information. The step information displays the statement, the name of the file which was being processed and the name of the action and line number which contains the statement.

The statement supports additional configurability which is documented in Advanced Prompt Statement Functionality. These settings can be configured by clicking on small button with the gear icon.

The action test state is always set depending on the value associated with each button. Further button differentiation can be determine from the Prompt Chosen Button named variable.

There are three choices for the Display setting:

Standard
  The prompt is issued in the Action Pending Window.
Alert
  The prompt is issued as a system alert as opposed to the in the Action Pending Window. Either the standard OS alert style or Yate's alternate alert style will be used. The Hide info option is effectively enabled. Colour settings are ignored and markup is not parsed. The default title is Yate.
Critical Alert
  Same as Alert with the exception that the application icon is displayed as indicating a warning.