HP NonStop G-Series : Pathmaker Programming Guide : Page 318

Modifying Requesters

Advanced Pathmaker Programming Topics

067868 Tandem Computers Incorporated 9–17

Coding USER Actions Specifying a USER action on the Function Key Assignments screen tells the Pathmaker

product not to execute any of the usual function key actions (such as SEND, CALL, or

RETURN). You use a USER action when you want the application to execute only the

SCREEN COBOL code that you supply in a requester copy library for a particular

function key. To create a user action, enter USER in the Action column of the Function

Key Assignments screen for a function key, then place your SCREEN COBOL code for

the USER action either in the PRE-

function-key

or the POST-

function-key

section in the requester copy library.

When you create a USER action, you must supply any screen display commands

needed for the action. If you have only one or two values you need to display, you can

use the screen field name to display values only in those fields. You should always

test to see if the base screen has been displayed before using a screen display

command.

For example, suppose you have a limited set of values that a data entry field can

accept. You could use a USER action and a requester copy library to allow the end

user to display each acceptable value, one at a time, in the data entry field on the

application screen. In this case, you do not need to access a database file, call another

requester, or do any of the other standard function key actions.

The following example illustrates one way you could implement this function using

the Pathmaker product.

Suppose you are creating a screen that displays a list of employee names and their

corresponding job codes and department numbers. You want to allow the end user to

display the list in any order: either by employee name, by job code, or by department.

The following example shows the application screen for this requester:

Requester with Cycling Field Page 1/ 1

================================================================================

Name Job Code Department

____________ __________ ____________

================================================================================

F3-Help F4-List By _______ F5-Next Choice F16-Return