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OVERVIEW.OAH
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1989-05-15
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USERMENU -- Version 1.00 (c) 1989, PGDN Software Co.
An Overview of How the USERMENU System Works
The USERMENU program reads user created MDF (Menu Definition Files)
and executes the commands found in these files based on user selection.
This isolates the user from DOS and allows single key selections to
execute several commands. Unless otherwise specified in the USERINST
program, the USERMENU program will always first load the MDF file which
is named USERMENU.MDF as the initial menu. Also, any menu instruction
can load another menu. To begin, consider the following example
What the User Sees The Menu Definition File HYPER.MDF
┌────────────────────────────┐
│ Office Applications System │ TITLE HyperCalc Spreadsheet Menu
│ HyperCalc SpreadSheet Menu │ ┌─ HyperCalc Spreadsheet
├────────────────────────────┤ │ CAPTURE /p=1 NB NF TI=5
│ 1. HyperCalc Spreadsheet │<──┘ CM V:\APPL\SS\HYPERCALC
│ │ EXT V: HYPER.EXE
│ 2. HyperCalc Tutorial │<──── HyperCalc Tutorial
│ │ CAPTURE /p=1 NB NT NF TI=10
│ 3. HyperCalc Translations │<──┐ CM V:\APPL\SS\HYPERCALC
│ │ │ V:TUT.EXE
│ 4. HyperCalc HyperPrint │<┐ └─ HyperCalc Translations
│ │ │ CM V:\APPL\SS\HYPERCALC
│ 5. Exit │ │ V:TRANSLAT.EXE
│ │ └─── HyperCalc HyperPrint
│ F1 - Help 05-10-89 08:30:10│ CAPTURE /Q=GRAPHS NB NT TI=20
└────────────────────────────┘ CM V:\APPL\SS\HYPERCALC
V:HYPERPRT.COM
Y:ENDCAP.EXE
In the example above, the user would simply press the '1' key to
execute HyperCalc, behind the scenes, the USERMENU program will
also reset the Novell Drive mapping and set up print spooling to a
network printer before loading the HyperCalc spreadsheet program.
Also, if the user presses the F1 key, the USERHELP.EXE program will
execute and display and help information associated with this menu
by loading the HYPER.OAH or HYPER.IDX file (See Section on USERHELP
for more information).
Summary of USERMENU.EXE Operation
The following is a brief summary of how the USERMENU.EXE program
operates. Understanding how the program functions may help you to
see how the overall system operates.
1.) The User executes UM.BAT which in turn executes USERMENU.EXE
2.) Upon loading, the USERMENU.EXE program searches it's own
directory for the USERMENU.SYS file and reads the default
values specified when USERINST was last run.
3.) The program assigns the current directory (where the user called
the program from) to a variable for later returning the user to
the correct directory after the program terminates.
4.) Next the USERMENU.EXE program searches the user's directory for
a USERMENU.CNF file. If the file exists, the program will reassign
default values if the user's values differ from those found in
the master USERMENU.SYS file. This allows even more flexibility
by allowing individual customization to single users.
5.) The program now searches for the default MDF file (specified by
USERISNT or USERMENU.MDF if none was specified). If the program
finds the file on the user's disk it uses that copy, otherwise
it reads the menu file from the PROGRAM directory specified by
userinst. If the default menu is not found, the program will
terminate. This double searching for menu files (on user disk
then program disk) is another method for increasing flexibility.
6.) The menu file is loaded into memory and the program waits for
user input to determine the sequence of commands or menus which
will be executed next.
7.) When the program is terminated, the user is returned to their
startup directory and control is passed back to UM.BAT, which
may either call another BAT file which was created via and
EXT command (See command sections) or exit.