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Form Master Form | 1991-09-25 | 5.5 KB | 76 lines |
- Lesson 2 - Using Attributes
- Steps for building a form:
- 1. Design your form on paper.
- 2. Enter text onto blank form (Lesson 1)
- 3. Add input fields to form (Lesson 2)
- You are here
- 4. Add borders to your form (Lesson 3)
- 5. Add special printer control functions (Lesson 4)
- You should proceed through these lessons in order. If you make any mistakes
- just reload the form and begin editing again.
- What is an Attribute
- An attribute defines how a character is seen on your monitor. It defines
- the color and background (if you have a color monitor), or intensity,
- inverse video, and underlining (if you have a monochrome monitor) of each
- character on your display. It also controls blinking which is supported
- by both monitors. Each character has its own attribute.
- Note that the top line of your display has black text with a white
- background. Its attribute is different than the rest of the screen.
- Press PgDn
- Attributes
- The following line shows examples of text with different attributes:
- xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx
- Try moving the cursor across this line of "xx's". On the top line, the
- attribute for the cursor changes to reflect the character the cursor is
- below.
- Cursor: 24, 1 | 07
- row, col| attribute
- There are 256 different possibilities, but some of these are invisible
- in that the character will be the same color as the background and some
- are not supported by the monochrome display adaptor.
- To see some of the possible attributes available, press F2 to view the
- 'Special Characters, Attributes' menu, then press ESC to get back here.
- Press PgDn
- Special Characters, Attributes Menu (F2)
- This menu allows you to do two things:
- o Select any character in the IBM character set. You can enter it
- on your form using F10.
- o Define a new attribute to use when entering text on your form.
- This menu has three functions. Switch functions by pressing ENTER:
- o Select special character (special character in big box will blink)
- o Select foreground character attribute
- o Select background character attribute
- All selections are made using the cursor control keys.
- Now try it out. Press F2, followed by various ENTERs and cursor
- arrow keys. Then press ESC to return here.
- Press PgDn
- Use Of Fields
- Fields are normally used for data entry on a form. FORM MASTER requires
- that text input fields be a different attribute so it knows where they
- are. You can have up to 500 input fields on your form but you are
- limited to a maximum of four different attributes. These attributes
- must be specified on the editor pop-up menu so FORM MASTER knows what
- they are. To see the pop-up menu press ESC, then F3 to return.
- Example:
- The following 4 character field has an attribute of 70:
- The following 3 character field has an attribute of 0F:
- Note the first field is blank filled and the second has "
- Press PgDn
- Practice
- Move the cursor to the '*' below, press F8, then press the space bar
- 4 times:
- Now press Tab and type 'abcd'. You have just defined an inverse field
- filled with blanks and another one filled with 'abcd'. The attribute is
- '70' (the current attribute is always changed to '70' when you press F8).
- If you place a '70' in one of the 'Input Field Attributes' fields on the
- editor pop-up menu, the above fields would become input fields. The
- first one is blank and the second one has a default value of 'abcd' which
- can be typed over when you're executing the form.
- Important keys to remember: F7 to switch to '07' (normal white on black
- background). F8 to switch to '70' (inverse video - black on white).
- F2 to define any attribute. F9 to switch to any attribute. The top
- line will show what the current attribute is:
- +Current Attr: 70
- Move to right side of this form and practice use of many different attributes.
- End of Lesson 2
-