Within a Mechanical APDL macro, you have several ways to access components of the Mechanical APDL graphical user interface (GUI):
You can modify and update the Mechanical APDL toolbar (discussed in Adding Commands to the Toolbar).
You can issue the *ASK command to prompt a user to enter a single parameter value.
You can create a dialog box to prompt a user to enter multiple parameter values.
You can issue the *MSG command to have the macro write an output message.
You can have the macro update or remove a status bar.
You can allow the user to select entities through graphical picking from within a macro.
You can call any dialog box.