This section describes menu operations for users with CRT displays. A menu is a CRT display containing numbered entries, each of which corresponds to (a) another menu or (b) a TAE command to be executed. Upon logging onto TAE, the menu user is presented with the "root" menu, the highest level in a tree of menus.
An example of a menu display is shown in Figure 3.3-1.
A menu user is presented with a menu and is prompted to make a selection or to enter a menu command. If a menu entry is selected, the new menu is displayed; if a command entry is selected, TAE executes the command.
When procs are executed from menus, TAE usually enters tutor mode so that the user may supply parameters for the proc before actual execution. (The programmer who sets up a menu may request that the proc be executed directly without stopping in tutor mode.) In tutor mode, the user is prompted for parameter values. When values have been supplied to the user's satisfaction, the proc may be executed. After execution, TAE re-displays the current menu and prompts for a new menu command. Tutor mode is described in Section 3.4.
For users with ANSI-compatible terminals, the arrow keys step through menu items. If a user presses the down-arrow, the next menu item is highlighted and its number is placed next to the prompting question mark. The up-arrow highlights the previous item in the menu. The highlighted menu item is selected by pressing the RETURN key. (To set up a terminal properly for arrow keys for UNIX, see Appendix A.2.2 "Note".)
The menu commands are presented in Table 3.3-1. The following considerations apply to menu commands:
The menu commands may be abbreviated e.g., "M" may be used for "MENU".
Lowercase is not significant, e.g., "menu" is equivalent to "MENU".
A user may switch back and forth between menu use and TCL use. When entering TCL from a menu (using "COMMAND"), the active menu and the path to the active menu are remembered; this context is automatically restored when menu mode is subsequently re-entered.
Menu: "UTIL", library "TAE$MENU" TAE UTILITIES 1) Prototype Conversion Utility (PCU) 2) Message Build Utility (MSGBLD) 3) Draw menu tree (MENUTREE) 4) List all procs in specified library (PROCS) 5) Generate a proc and execute it (PROCGEN) 6) Format session log data (SESSLOG) 7) Enable logging of screens (SCREENON) 8) Disable logging of screens (SCREENOFF) 9) Start creation of script file (SCRIPTON) 10) End generation of script file (SCRIPTOFF) 11) Submit a proc to batch (BATCH-SUBMIT) 12) Submit a proc to async (ASYNC-SUBMIT) Enter: selection number, HELP, BACK, TOP, MENU, COMMAND, or LOGOFF ? |
| a number | Selects the menu entry corresponding to the number. |
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| HELP | Displays information on the operation of TAE menu mode.
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| HELP* | Requests help information on the current menu.
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| HELP proc | Requests help information on the operation of the named proc.
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| HELP n | Requests help information on entry n of the current menu.
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| ? | Help on the last message is displayed.
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| BACK | Returns to the previous menu
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| TOP | Backs up to the root menu.
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| MENU menu-name | Activates the named menu. The "menu-name" specification may be
a simple menu name or a host-dependent, qualified file
specification. The new menu is added to the menu path so that a BACK
from the new menu returns the user to the current menu.
If "menu-name" is omitted, the current menu is re-painted. If the library specification is omitted from "menu-name", then TAE performs a hierarchy search (Section 2.4.1) to locate the menu.
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| COMMAND | Causes the TAE user to exit menu mode and enter the TAE Command
Language.
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| LOGOFF | Logs the user off the system.
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| REPLY | The REPLY command responds to a request for additional
parameters from an asynchronous job. When one or more asynchronous jobs
is waiting to communicate with the interactive user, the word "REPLY" is
highlighted on the menu screen.
When REPLY is executed, TAE enters dynamic tutor mode (Section 3.4) for the asynchronous job. REPLY appears on the menu screen only when asynchronous job is waiting. |
Because each menu may reference other menus, the user may traverse through many levels in the "menu tree". TAE remembers the path from the root menu to the currently active menu so that the user may, at each level, back up to the previous menu (using the BACK command).
The root menu is, by default, the menu named ROOT in the TAE system menu library. A user may select a root menu different from the default by explicitly specifying the menu name in the first MENU command of the session. (Such specification of the root is typically done in the ULOGON proc; see Section 3.1.)
A menu corresponds to a menu definition file (MDF), a text file which defines the menu title and the menu entries. MDFs are created or changed by using the host system's text editor. See the "TAE Command Language (TCL) Programmer's Manual" for a description of the contents of an MDF.
The following commands capture a user in menu mode and prevent entry to the host command language: