RevMedia

The recent QTIP about delimiting a browse list with @RMs has prompted extra interest in collector windows and subscribers have been asking what additional features are available from collector windows. We present below some additional tips relating to advanced collector windows.

Symbolics in Collectors

As collector windows do not have an associated dictionary file, they cannot display symbolics. To get around this, define a field which is protected from amendment and define a user-defined conversion for the field that calls the associated Commuter logic (NB the Commuter logic will need to be redefined to expect four variables as per a normal user-defined conversion). Then in the user-defined conversion logic, insert the "symbolic logic". If you find that this is not recalculating when you need it to, put a post-prompt on the fields that effect this "pseudo- symbolic" that simply sets DISPLAY.ACTION to 5, thus ensuring the recalculation of all fields.

Collector Set-Up/Save Codes

The standard set-up and save codes of 1 2 and 3 are well documented, however there are additional possible values for the codes as follows -

  4      Save - When the user presses F9, @FMs and @VMs are converted into
         spaces in @RECORD, which is then performed. The screen image is
         saved off before the perform and redisplayed after the perform has
         been completed. To illustrate set up a simple collector window that
         prompts for the TCL command and the file to use, set the save code
         to 4 and test run it.

  5      Save - Behaves in a similar manner to 4 but when the perform has
         completed the system prints a message prompting "Press any key to
         continue".

  6      Save - Takes the current collector window name and puts it onto the
         front of @SENTENCE before performing it. Thus if the collector were
         called EDIT and the first field were VOC and the second LISTFILES
         the system would EDIT VOC LISTFILES when the screen was saved.

  7      Save - Behaves in a similar manner to 6 but when the perform has
         completed the system prints a message prompting "Press any key to
         continue".

  Name   Save - When the name of a catalogued subroutine is put into the
         code field, this routine is called with @RECORD loaded into
         @SENTENCE and the subroutine name placed at the front followed by a
         space. EG if the subroutine called was ATEST and the fields entered
         had been EDIT and VOC, @SENTENCE would contain ATEST EDIT VOC.

It would appear that of the above options only 6 is now used within the AREV Command records (try LIST COMMANDS PSEUDO).