ENABLE User's Guide

TAILORING AN APPLICATION
General Guidlines for Customizing a Screen
General Guidelines for Customizing a Screen
Before you decide on a format for your customized screen,
consider the needs of the people who will use it. When choosing
a screen format for an application, do the following wherever
possible:
• Provide a descriptive screen title. If you supply a
descriptive screen title, the users can be confident that they
are using the appropriate application.
• Provide your own labels for screen fields. You can supply
labels that are more informative than the field names used for
a standard format screen.
• Display a key field as the first field on the screen. Most
users expect to be able to enter a value in the first screen
field, press an appropriate read function key, and retrieve a
record. If the first screen field is not a key field, the
user must tab to a key field before retrieving a record.
• Provide user information within a box whenever necessary. If
appropriate, you might want to provide user instructions (such
as the type of data that can be entered into a particular
field) when you customize the screen.
• For multifile applications, wherever possible, display all
other fields in a parent box before you display any join
fields that link that box to a child box. In this way, all
the fields of the parent box appear in one area and the user
does not have to tab over a child box to complete an entry for
the parent box.
• Display several records within a box where appropriate. When
the primary purpose of an application is to display data, a
box that displays more than one record is often more
convenient.
• Provide a compressed format if many fields will appear in a
box. A compressed format is one in which more than one field
appears on a screen line. With a compressed format, the
application is more likely to display an entire record on one
screen page. This not only enhances the appearance of the
screen, but also improves the usability of the application,
since the user will not have to move to a new screen page to
view the entire record.
6-2