REVMEDIA FKB Articles - AREV, OI, REV G, jREV, JCDC, LIVEWATER,ADVANCED REVELATION, OPENINSIGHT, REVELATION G

RevMedia FKB

Document	V1I5A17
Title	Prompt Help
Keywords	PROMPT HELP UTILITY.DOC STATUP STATUS.CONSTANTS $INSERT GAS.BAR
Text	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 $INSERT STATUS CONSTANTS PRE: PROMPT REGISTER1 = SI<47> STATUP(SINGLE$ 3 PROMPT REGISTER1) RETURN 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) 0001 ! PROGRAM PROMPT HELP designed for use at TCL 0002 * Author AMcA 0003 * Purpose To add/amend single lines of help for each 0004 * prompt on a template Copyright Sprezzatura 0005 * Ltd 1989 Permission is granted for REVMEDIA 0006 * subscribers to use this program for any 0007 * purpose No liability accepted for use 0008 GOSUB SET UP 0009 GOSUB GET PARAMS 0010 IF OK THEN 0011 GOSUB PROCESS 0012 WRITE WINDOW ON TF SCREEN 0013 END 0014 STOP 0015 0016 SET UP: 0017 DECLARE SUBROUTINE MSG 0018 DECLARE FUNCTION POP UP 0019 EQU TRUE$ TO 1 0020 EQU FALSE$ TO 0 0021 EQU TEXT$ TO "Please ENTER single line help for %1%" 0022 OK = FALSE$ ; TEMPLATE FILE = "" 0023 RETURN 0024 0025 GET PARAMS: 0026 GOSUB PARSE SENTENCE 0027 IF T FILE = "" THEN T FILE = "TEMPLATES" 0028 IF SCREEN = "" THEN 0029 CALL MSG("Please enter window name" "RC" SCREEN "") 0030 END 0031 OPEN T FILE TO TF THEN 0032 READ WINDOW FROM TF SCREEN THEN 0033 OK =TRUE$ 0034 END ELSE 0035 MSG("Window is not on file" "" "" "") 0036 END 0037 END ELSE 0038 MSG("Template file is not attached" "" "" "") 0039 END 0040 RETURN 0041 0042 PROCESS: 0043 CTR = WINDOW<1> + 1 ; * Offset to SKIP prompt count 0044 FOR X CTR = 2 TO CTR 0045 * Only add help for F FIELD 0046 IF WINDOW = "F" THEN 0047 ANS = WINDOW; Prompt Register 1 0048 MSG(TEXT$ "R" ANS WINDOW) 0049 WINDOW = ANS 0050 END 0051 NEXT 0052 RETURN 0053 0054 PARSE SENTENCE: 0055 SENT = TRIM(@SENTENCE) 0056 IF SENT [1 3] = "RUN" THEN SENT = FIELD(SENT " " 3 99) 0057 SCREEN = FIELD(SENT " " 2) ;SENT = FIELD(SENT " " 3 99) 0058 IF SCREEN [1 1] = "@" THEN 0059 Must be identifying template file to use 0060 T FILE = SCREEN[2 "@"] ; SCREEN =FIELD(SENT "" 1) 0061 END 0062 RETURN (Volume 1 Issue 5 Pages 10 11)

[revmedia/copyrigh.htm]

Page last modified: 08/02/03