HP 3000 Manuals

USING VPLUS/V AN INTRO. TO FORMS DESIGN Self-Paced Training Guide

ADD COMMENTS TO PROCESSING SPECIFICATIONS 

When you entered the editing statements in Section 4, you added custom
error messages that are displayed by ENTRY in case the edit fails.  These
messages are aids to the user to make error correction easier.  FORMSPEC
provides another type of message for the forms designer.  These are
comments that can be added to any processing specification to describe
the purpose of the specification statement.  These comments are
particularly useful for non-editing statements where custom error
messages are not allowed.

Comments must be preceded by a back slash (\).  This distinguishes them
from the specification statement itself.  When the forms file is
compiled, the comments are retained in the forms file, but they do not
affect execution and, thus, are governed by no syntax rules other than
the initial back slash.

When the Field Menu is displayed, the comment is displayed too.  And when
the forms file is listed, the comments are listed with the field
description.  They serve as documentation for the forms designer to
describe what the particular statement does and, as such, are
particularly useful if someone other than the initial designer wants to
determine the intent of the associated statement.

Action 

To add these statements, you first run FORMSPEC and request the file,
ORDFORM1, as shown in Figure 8-1.


          Figure 8-2.  The Main Menu 

Action 

Then, when the Main Menu is displayed you go to the Field Menu for ORDNUM
in the ORDER_TOTALS form, as shown in Figure 8-2.  Press ENTER to go to
the specified field.


          Figure 8-3.  The Field Menu for ORDNUM in ORDER_TOTALS Form 

Action 

When the Field Menu for ORDNUM in the ORDER_TOTALS form is displayed,
enter the comments shown in Figure 8-3; press ENTER.

Comments do not need to be added to editing specification statements
since these all have custom error messages that sufficiently explain the
statement without further comment.

Action 

Now that you understand the sequence of entering comments, look at the
listing of the forms file in Appendix A and enter the comments for each
Field Menu.


          Figure 8-4.  The Main Menu 

MPE/iX 5.0 Documentation