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The name and characteristics of each form are specified on
the Form Menu. As soon as the Menu specifications are entered, FORMSPEC
displays a blank screen on which you design the layout of the form.
This form layout phase establishes the field names and their characteristics.
Based on the form layout, FORMSPEC then displays a Field Menu for each
field established on the form. The Form Menu is displayed once for each form you define.
When you have no more forms to define, press MAIN/RESUME to display the Main Menu in order to compile the forms
file. The Form Menu is illustrated in Figure 3-18 “Form Menu” FORMSPEC stores forms in alphabetic order. When new forms
are added to the forms file, they are inserted in the USASCII collating
sequence. The Globals Menu (see description later in this section)
allows you to specify which form is to be executed first. This form
can be referenced by the system-defined value $HEAD. If you do not specify the head form name, $HEAD defaults to the first form in the file. Adding
a new form may change the value of this default. You must specify at least a form name on the Form Menu. Default
values are provided for the remaining specifications. If these defaults
are not what you want, you can overwrite them with other values.
If satisfied with the defaults, press ENTER to go directly to form layout. Fields | |
- Form Name
Enter a name to identify the form. The name can
be from 1 to 15 characters, either letters of the USASCII alphabet (A-Z),
digits (0-9), or the underline (). The first character must be alphabetic.
The name can be entered using uppercase or lowercase letters, but
all lowercase letters are shifted to uppercase by FORMSPEC. Thus,
if you enter the name Form2, FORMSPEC changes it to FORM2. The form name must be unique within the forms file, and it
cannot be one of the reserved words listed earlier in Table 3-2 “FORMSPEC Reserved Word List” Note that the form name can be changed by replacing
the name in the Form Name field. If you change a form name, you
should make sure that references to this form as "Next Form" in
other Form Menus are also changed. - Repeat Option
When the forms in the forms file are displayed,
a form may be repeated and appended to itself (A); it may be repeated overlaying the previous display
of the same form (R); or it can be a non-repeating form that is displayed
on the screen once (N). Either repeat option (A or R) causes the form to be repeated until the application
changes the repeat option, or, in ENTRY, the user presses NEXT to request the next different form. Default No repeat (N). | | | |  | NOTE: Both Repeat Option and Next Form can be changed dynamically
within the application (refer to Section 6) as well as through processing
specifications (refer to Section 4). | | | | |
- Next Form
You must enter the name of the next form to be displayed after
the current form. You may also specify whether the next form is
to be appended to the current form, A; and, if appended, whether the current form is
to remain on the screen when the screen fills up, F. If the screen is to be cleared before the next
form is displayed, leave the default value, C. Default Clear (C). - Next Form Name
The next form name is entered as a standard form
name or you can enter one of the following system-defined values: - $RETURN
Display the previous (but different) form. - $HEAD
Display the first form (either the first in the
file or as defined on the Globals menu). - $END
Terminate forms display with this form. - $REFRESH
Display current form cleared to initial values as
the next form.
Note that each of these values has meaning only when the forms
file is executed. Any value entered for Next Form Name can be changed
through the CHANGE NFORM processing specification described in Section
4. Default $HEAD - Freeze/Append Option
This option allows you to specify how the next form
will interact with the current form. The next form can be appended
to the current form, and if so, the current form can be frozen on
the screen when subsequent forms are displayed. Note that this option
can also be changed by the CHANGE NFORM field processing specification described in Section
4. Default Clear screen before displaying
next form (C). - Function Key Labels
To define or modify form level function key labels,
enter a Y in this box to obtain the Form Function Key Labels Menu.
After function key labels have been defined, FORMSPEC will place
an X in the Function Key Label field. The default function
key labels can be reset by entering an N. If you specify a Y in this field, the Form Function Key Labels Menu
is displayed, as shown in Figure 3-19 “Form Function Key Labels Menu” The data capture
devices do not support function key labeling. - Reproduced from (opt)
This optional field is used in the creation of form
families, a feature discussed earlier in this section. - Comments
You can enter a comment to help document the form.
The comment is displayed with the source file, but is not included
in the displayed form at execution time. A comment can be up to
50 characters long.
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