UIAlpha mode does not persist outside the scope of a program; should it?

[jthole]

I created a simple program to switch between Alpha and Non-Alpha mode quickly:

«
	IF
		65 FS?
	THEN
		UIALPHA 65 CF
	ELSE
		UINOALPHA 65 SF
	END
»

However, when I execute UIALPHA, the Alpha mode is disabled as soon as the program ends (checked with '5 WAIT'). Should the alpha mode persist outside the scope of the program, or is this intended behavior?

Thanks for your ideas!

[evgaster]

Curious ...
What is the use case?

There seems to be no documentation on any of the UI* commands. Reading the code doesn't tell me much.

[jthole]

Curious ... What is the use case?

I wanted to have a "one key" option in the custom menu to switch between alpha and numerical (non-alpha) mode.

There seems to be no documentation on any of the UI* commands. Reading the code doesn't tell me much.

Same here, but looking at the behaviour, it seems the UI functions do not have a global effect (so when called from within a program, UI changes only apply within the scope of the program). The code tells me approximately what the UIAlpha plane does, but not much more. But I am not a developer (at least not the past 25 years ...).

[mipa83]

Maybe, this could be a solution: "hold 🟨 for more than half a second. This cycles between Alpha ABC and Normal entry modes", see https://github.com/c3d/db48x/blob/stable/help/db48x.md#alpha-mode