Does anyone know if there is a TCL command that would bring up the Status Bar and then one to make it disappear. I am trying to have the status bar appear when I perform a SSELECT to visualize the Record Selecting that is occuring. If possible, it would be used something like this,

PERFORM 'STATUS BAR ON'

PERFORM 'SSELECT INVOICES.PAID BY PAY.DATE'

PERFORM 'STATUS BAR OFF'

Normally, our program runs without the Status Bar to give more screen space.

Thanks,

Tim

Tim,

If, as it looks like you are, you are executing these commands from inside an R/BASIC program, there is a global variable that controls whether or not the status bar is visible. The variable name is @STATUS.ON . It can assume two values, 0 (zero) or 1 (one). Obviously, these are boolean true and false. If set to zero, status bar is off. If set to one, then status bar is on. There are several of my programs in which I am doing a custom write to the status bar, and when I do a select, or call another program that does a select, I'll turn the status bar off, and then when the process is over, I'll turn it back on.

However, I believe this only applies to whether or not the status bar is update. If, at the application level, you have the status bar disabled, then it will not display at all. To my knowledge there is not a way around this, but someone else may know of one.

Matt Sorrell

M.G.A., Inc.

We covered this in an old FKB so it may not be as relevant as it used to be. Unfortunately I won't hit the office for a day or so and don't have FKB at home. Anyone out there with a copy has my permission to post the article.

Regards

amcauley@sprezzatura.com

Sprezzatura Ltd

World Leaders in all things RevSoft

I'm not sure if this will answer the right questions, but I found a couple of articles that seemed to relate to this topic (one from Revelation and one from Sprezzatura). Here the are:

  Enabling And Disabling The Status Line In An R/basic Program     Page: 1

  Document: R57                                           Date:30 JUL 1990

  Author:   Revelation Technologies                                       

  Level:    Intermediate

  While running an R/BASIC program, you may want to access all areas of the

  screen, including the area occupied by the status line. If the status line

  is on, you will need to turn it off temporarily. This can be accomplished by

  following these steps:

• Set the screen height to the desired level.

• Store the current screen image.

• Turn the status line off.

• Clear the screen.

• Do your processing.

• Turn the status line back on.

• Restore the screen image.

• Restore the screen height.

  Figure 1 provides an example of these steps.

  In other cases you may wish to temporarily prevent the status line from

  being updated during part of your program. For example, you may not want the

  user to see all of the system information that displays on the status line

  when your program does a PERFORM "SELECT...." The system variable @STATUS.ON

  can be changed to prevent the updates to the status line. Figure 2 shows

  this technique.

  Figure 1

  DECLARE FUNCTION ESC.TO.ATTR

  DECLARE SUBROUTINE VIDEO.RW

• Change the screen height.

  @CRTHIGH += 3

• Save the screen image.

  VIDEO.RW(0, 0, @CRTWIDE - 1, @CRTMAXHIGH - 1,'R', IMAGE)

• Turn off updates to the status line.

  SAVE_STATUS=@STATUS.ON

  @STATUS.ON =0

• Clear the screen. @AW contains the background color

• for all windows.

  ATTR=ESC.TO.ATTR(@AW)

  BACKCHAR=@ENVIRON.SET ;* The backdrop character.

  VIDEO.RW(0, 0, @CRTWIDE - 1, @CRTMAXHIGH - 1,'C', BACKCHAR:ATTR)

• Processing goes here.

• Restore updates to the status line.

  @STATUS.ON=SAVE_STATUS

 Enabling And Disabling The Status Line In An R/basic Program Page: 2

• Restore the screen image.

  VIDEO.RW(0, 0, @CRTWIDE - 1, @CRTMAXHIGH - 1, 'W', IMAGE)

• Restore the screen height.

  @CRTHIGH -= 3

• END OF PROGRAM

  STOP

  Figure 2

  @STATUS.ON=0

  PERFORM 'SELECT SAMPLE_CUSTOMER BY STATE (S'

  @STATUS.ON=1

 Customising The Status Line Page: 1

  Document: V4I4A4                                        Date:01 AUG 1992

  Author:   Sprezzatura Ltd                                               

  Level:    Expert

  When designing applications with an AREV "look and feel" it can be desirable

  to create highlighted words on the bottom status line (as with the system

  help level 2 function keys). In addition, when indicating cursor key

  movement it makes sense to use the arrow characters to illustrate the keys

  to press rather than spelling out "Cursor Left", "Cursor Right" etc.

  Two minor points need to be made before the explanation proper begins.

  Firstly, Status Line images are now stored in SYS.TEXT_PARMS, with a key of

  Process*Status (or Process2*Status for help level 2 images). Secondly, there

  are now only two supported help levels, 0 and 2. Whilst it is possible to

  use a help level of 1 this can lead to problems.

  When adding new status line images it behoves us to cater for both levels of

  user, so two status line images should be created per process, one for level

  0 and one for level 2. Statup will automatically select the correct image

  when asked to load Process. This discussion will concentrate on level 2

  status images but it can be amended for level 0.

  The layout of the status line image is documented in various places (UTILITY

  subdirectory on pre release 2.0, Programmer's Reference on 2.1, System

  Subroutines book) but the field that is of interest when customising

  highlighted words, is field 2. This field (in a level 2 status line)

  contains four multivalues, three for the top three boxes of the status line

  and the fourth for the bottom line. Highlighted words can only be put into

  the fourth multivalue.

  Very Simple Program to Test Amended Status Lines

  So that the new status lines can be tested, a simple program such as the one

  following can be used. Simply compile, catalog and attach to a macro key

        Subroutine TestStat

         /*

            Note that with help level 2 this will display record SPREZZ2

• /

         Call Statup(4,"SPREZZ",Save)

         Call Input.Char(x)

         Call Statup(5,"", Save)

        Return

  Adding Highlighted Words

  The key point here is the use of hyphens. In multivalue 4, everything up to

  the first hyphen will be highlighted, then after the first hyphen, every

  word before a hyphen will be highlighted. Thus if a record were created

  called SPREZZ2*STATUS with a layout as follows

  MENU

  Sprezz

  RevM  

  Field 3

 Customising The Status Line Page: 2

  This is Highlighted-This Isn't-ThisIs-This Isn't

  1

  it would appear on the status line as follows

  ³Sprezz³RevM  ³Field 3                           ³

  ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´

  ³This is Highlighted-This Isn't-ThisIs-This Isn't³

  Note then that to give the illusion of multiple words being highlighted,

  mixed capitalisation must be used (I.E. ThisIs, rather than This Is, where

  only the Is would be highlighted). Note further that when the text in

  the record is shorter than the width of the status line cell, a number of

  spaces must be appended after the text to display to the width of the cell.

  With the final cell this can be made easier by appending a value mark.

  Adding Arrow Characters To the Status Line

  Unfortunately the ASCII characters for the various arrow symbols cannot be

  added directly into the status line as they cause the screen to become

  corrupted. To get around this, a fix has been provided. It would not be

  uncharitable to describe this fix as a kludge.

  Essentially, five characters have been provided that are taken by the system

  to mean that they should be replaced with arrow characters when they are

  bracketed by *'s and a flag variable is set. The characters and their

  meanings are as follows

       #         Þ (represents a double headed arrow)

       ~         ?

       |         

       ^         

       `         

  The flag variable is that somewhere in the preceding text, a ^ should have

  been entered. For convenience it is recommended that this be the first

  character on the line although this is not strictly necessary (see note 1).

  Thus the the status record

    MENU

    ^Sprezz

  Rev*^* M 

• ~*-Move Left *³*-Move Right

    1

  would appear on the status line as follows

  ³Sprezz³RevM ³.......                           ³

  ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´

 Customising The Status Line Page: 3

  ³?-Move Left -Move Right                        ³

  Note 1:

  Thus the example given could also have achieved the same results if rendered

       Sprezz

  Re^v*^*M

• ~*-Move Left *|*-Move Right

  (Volume 4, Issue 4, Pages 6-7)

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