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1991-09-25
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APPLICATIONS MAKER - INPUT SCREEN HELP
APPLICATIONS MAKER is a program that supports the implementation of
user-designed screens and/or reports. These APPLICATIONS may be very
simple, or quite complex.
With APPLICATIONS MAKER you are the programmer. Most people don't
know any programming languages and don't want to learn. That's why,
within APPLICATIONS MAKER, there's no syntax to learn and no text
file to write. Everything is done by simply locating your cursor and
pressing your return (enter) key.
The program executes your APPLICATION just like you are reading this
text. It starts at the upper left corner of the INPUT SCREEN and
executes each item it finds, moving from left to right and down. If
you can read this help screen you already understand the format.
You may divide your INPUT and REPORT screens into sub-screens and
multiple reports. For information on how to do so see the help for
the MISC items on the INPUT screen. To get this help screen press
return on any blank space on the INPUT screen, select MISC item type
and then press your H key.
THE DIALOG BOX and THE DATA DISPLAY AREA:
The DIALOG BOX at the bottom of your screen holds a mini-menu. On
it, you will see items such as: Scrn, Write, Quit etc. To select
these options you press the first letter of their names.
The upper, larger screen area displays your APPLICATION. When you
begin an APPLICATION this area is blank. As you place your items on
the screen it becomes "populated." All items necessary to implement
your APPLICATIONS, both data and control, appear in the data display
area. The placement of your items controls when they will execute.
INITIALIZING YOUR SCREENS:
The size of both screens is specified during the definition of the
application, but they are initialized a little differently one from
another. The INPUT sub-screens are of a fixed width: seventy-eight
characters. You may use up to one hundred sub-screens in your
application, and direct control into any of them.
The REPORT, however, does not have a fixed width. You may have a
wide-carriage printer; you may opt to use different print pitches.
If your printer supports fifteen characters per inch and your paper
is eight inches wide your report could be one hundred twenty
characters in width. The report width can be set to whatever value
you desire.
When you begin a new application you will be prompted for the number
of SUB-SCREENS comprising the INPUT screen, and the number of COLUMNS
on the report screen. These may be INCREASED at any time by editing
the application, but the screens can never get any smaller.
In order to quickly display and use your screens they are created
when the application starts. This necessitates the provision of a
space to store the screens. Storage of screens is usually done in
the computer's memory in order to provide quick access to the data.
The screens may be up to 7,800 characters in width and 1,900 lines
tall. Simple multiplication of these two numbers gives us 14,820,000
bytes of storage space for EACH screen. Since PC hardware running
MS-DOS provides only 65,536 bytes of memory it is easy to see that
storing the screens in memory is impossible.
When you begin a new application you must enter a path/filename for
the screen files, which will be kept on disk. Suggested is the
/MAGE/DBSEFILE directory created by the DATAMAGE installation process
to hold data imported from dBase formatted datafiles.
As of version 4.0 DATAMAGE does NOT have multi-user capabilities.
This means that the system runs on ONE computer and the programs
within the system can NOT handle the access of datafiles by more than
one user in a simultaneous manner. Multi-user capabilities are
planned for version 4.4.
For now, all of your applications can use the same screen files.
These files will be of the size of your largest application, and if
they are used by an application that requires less disk space then
only the first part of the file will be used. Doing this will save
you lots of disk space if you run several applications.
NAVIGATING ON THE SCREENS:
The four arrow keys will move your cursor one space in any direction,
as you would expect. Holding the shift key down and hitting an arrow
key will move approximately one quarter screen in any direction;
holding the control key down will move an entire screen in any
direction, provided your screen was defined larger than one screen
wide and/or 19 rows tall.
HOT KEYS:
Pressing the insert key will place a blank line into your screen at
the current cursor position, provided there's no items on the last
line of your application.
Pressing the delete key will remove the line at the current cursor
position, provided there are no items on that line.
Pressing S (or s) will change the display to the other screen. If
your are viewing the INPUT screen you will go to the REPORT screen,
and vice-versa. The screens look EXACTLY the same, but the first
item in the DIALOG BOX will inform you of the current display. Be
certain to check which screen you're on before taking action!
Pressing T will test-execute your application. During test-execution
you will have debugging options not available during execution of the
screen via menu option 1, execute. You may opt to redirect your
normal disk output to the printer, and to list any new records
written to the printer.
Pressing N will renew the current screen. If you are testing your
application the data you entered will remain in place after your test
is completed. Press N to get rid of it.
Pressing D will open a window in which you will see the user numeric
array, or the user string array. From this window you may assign
names to your variables and view the data they hold. The names are
saved with the application.
Pressing P will print the details of the current screen.
Pressing Q will terminate processing of the application.
Pressing W will record the application to disk.
Pressing H will display this help file.
INITIALIZING INPUT ITEMS:
To place an item on the input screen you locate the cursor at the
position on the screen where you wish the item to appear, then press
return. Prompts guide you through the many types of items that you
may implement on the screens. On-screen help is available for the
items you will be using.
To edit/move/delete (etc.) an item already on the input screen you
place the cursor in any space occupied by that item and press
return/enter. You may also view the status of any screen item in
this manner.
TESTING YOUR APPLICATIONS:
Pressing T or t when in edit mode will test-execute the application.
The Test-execution will proceed as if the screen were being used in
entry mode. You will then have an opportunity to re-direct the
normal disk output to your printer, in order to facilitate
applications testing.
It is EXTREMELY important that you create a test environment for your
new APPLICATIONS. If you fail to do so you are almost certain to
ruin your datafiles. Please see the APCNMAKR.DOC file for detailed
instructions on making/using a test environment.
APPLICATION REPORTS:
To help you keep track of your applications the program prints
reports detailing INPUT screen if activated from the input screen, or
the REPORT screen if activated from there. This printout details
each of the items you have selected, in the order found. The data
for each is the same that is displayed when you place the cursor on
that item and opt for the item's status.
ON-SCREEN HELP:
APPLICATIONS MAKER offers on-screen help in several places within the
program. You will know when the help is available by seeing the
words PRESS YOUR H KEY FOR ON-SCREEN HELP centered in the last line
of the dialog box, or seeing the word Help in the dialog box. In
either case you simply press the H (or h) key. The help will be
displayed and then you will return to the place in the program where
you were when you opted for help.