SeeView Manual

SeeView Programming
HP NonStop SeeView Manual—526355-004
6-6
Identify Which Types of Menus to Use
Identify Which Types of Menus to Use
Decide what types of menu items you are going to use. In general, you can build four
types of menu functions using the SeeView language:
•
Standard: An item within a menu that executes commands or displays information
when selected.
•
Input: An input field within a menu where text can be entered, followed by a
carriage return. Also referred to as a prompt or input production.
•
Toggle: An item whose Boolean value changes when selected. The new value of
the item appears within the menu.
•
Select: An item that offers a list of values when it is selected. The new value of
the item appears within the menu if a new value is selected.
Some scripts utilize all four types of menu items. Others only need standard menu
items.
The Toggle and Select menu items are useful for syntactically complex commands.
They provide extensibility when dealing with commands that have many attributes.
Toggle and Select menu items are used to minimize the chance of user error. Although
Toggle and Select menu items provide more variability in an interface, they can also
make the interface more confusing to use. If you are willing to limit some of the power
of an interface in exchange for ease of use, you might limit the initial design to
standard and input menu items only. If you use Toggle and Select menu items, make
sure they redraw the menu they were called from because their values change.
Once you have determined the types of menus you need, you must decide where to
put them. Try to contain your script to page 1 entirely to minimize disorientation.
However, using a second page is not necessarily a bad practice. It can be appropriate,
when it provides cross-reference information. For example, you could have a Select
menu with many attributes on page 1. If you want help for the attributes, you can
create a HELP window on page 2. You could then display an advisory message
indicating that help for selection attributes is available on the next terminal page. The
environment on page 1 remains intact so that the user can switch back and forth,
moving between the help and the set of menus.