RevMedia

Developers familiar with other application generators for the PC may like the way in which some of these packages display a single line of help for each prompt where the cursor is currently positioned. This can tell the user briefly what is being asked for and point to other keys which may be of use. This feature is often preferable as frequently all the user needs is a memory jogger, not a full screen of help.

With a view to implementing a similar feature under AREV I considered the best way to do it. To put the help in a separate file would slow down access on a network, but to put it into labelled common would use up valuable labelled common areas. I decided to use the Prompt Registers mentioned in the UTILITY.DOC file. Thus, when the template was loaded, the help would be loaded and access would be instantaneous. The only remaining problem was how and where to display the help. Having considered all kinds of complicated ploys, pre and post prompt options to display and remove the message, I finally arrived at a much simpler solution. The user has by now been trained to look at the status line for help, so all information should be posted there. To get it there obviously requires a call to STATUP, so the solution was simply to put a call to STATUP on the preprompt of every prompt. This removes the need to look after the debris left behind by the previous prompt - each successive STATUP call overwrites the previous.

Thus (assuming the help was in Prompt Register 1, and that STATUS.CONSTANTS had been $INSERTed from the appropriate location), the code on the Pre Prompt hook would be

The only remaining problem was how to get the help into the Prompt Registers. To ease this task I developed the following utility. It simply takes a nominated template, and for each prompt asks for a single line of help (showing the previous help, if any, for amendment). This help it then inserts into the appropriate prompt on the template in the position for Prompt Register 1. Calling syntax (from TCL) is PROMPT.HELP {@template.file@} template.name .

The only problem of which I am currently aware with this routine, occurs when a new record is added. In this case the record id and the "New Record" message appear briefly on the status line before being replaced by our single line help. This is however hardly noticeable and so I am leaving this for now! (On a related topic, Al Blake of the Nature Conservancy Council points out that if your user help level is set to 2 in the GAS.BAR program of issue 2, the screen corrupts when GAS.BAR is used. The solution is to include a dummy variable name in which to push the old status line image).