[<<Previous Entry]
[^^Up^^]
[Next Entry>>]
[Menu]
[About The Guide]
. . . MENU SYSTEM OVERVIEW . . .
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The MENU SYSTEM menu is an extension of the CA-Clipper "@...PROMPT" and
"MENU TO" system with a lot of additional functionality.
The "@...PROMPT" syntax now has a WHEN clause which not only restricts access
to menu options in much the same way as the GET SYSTEM, but it also changes
color to indicate non-accessibility. An ACTION or PULLDOWN clause has been
added to permit "MENU TO" to perform an action without exiting itself.
The PULLDOWN clause identifies an associated PULLDOWN menu. The PULLDOWN
choices can have ACTIONs or additional submenus called PULLOUTs which
have choices and ACTIONs.
The ACTION clause allows any function to be performed.
There is now an optional hot key associated with a PROMPT, PULLDOWN or
PULLOUT. The hot key is indicated with a tilde (~) prefixing the desired
hot key character in the PROMPT, PULLDOWN or PULLOUT text. The tilde is
removed at runtime and the hot key character is highlighted in the
appropriate color.
The MENU SYSTEM works the same as SAA dictates allowing choices to be made
via the mouse, hot key or cursor movement with the enter key as the launch
mechanism.
Color is not dependant upon the CA-Clipper standard SETCOLOR() setting as
there is a dedicated MENU SYSTEM color function (SetMenuColor()). This
function allows the programmer to set the highlighted, accessible,
non-accessible and hot key colors. Additionally, the PULLDOWN and PULLOUT
colors are controlled through the SetPullColor() function.
Localized outside behavior can be passed to the MENU SYSTEM via the
SetMEvent() function. Since the MENU SYSTEM can be attached to another
subsystem such as the STDBrowse() browser, localized behavior pertaining to
the subsystem can be passed to the MENU SYSTEM insuring that appropriate
action is performed when events happen. As in the example of a STDBrowse()
browser, when a mouse click is performed when the MENU SYSTEM has focus and
the click was not on any of the MENU SYSTEM entities but within the
boundries of the STDBrowse() browser, control would be passed to the browser.
This page created by ng2html v1.05, the Norton guide to HTML conversion utility.
Written by Dave Pearson