One of the finest features an SB+ application can have is an abundance of help. While F1-Help is useful for telling the user what to do, F3-Intuitive Help is often more useful for helping the user make a proper entry.
As a general rule, if a field has a validation, there should probably be some form of intuitive help available. This provides a safety net for the user who has entered an invalid value and is unsure about what the valid options are. True, F1-Help can be of some value, but there's nothing more user-friendly than simply selecting an option from a list of valid values.
Most intuitive help processes are Selection-type processes. The tool to enter these is called Process Definition - Selection, and is available by traversing through Tools, Process Definitions, and finally Selection in the menu tree. Or, for a more direct approach, simply enter /PD.S at any prompt or menu.
Process Definition - Selection appears as follows:
At the Process Name prompt, enter the name of a process to create or edit. If the process exists, it will be displayed for editing.
The Description prompt allows you to enter a description for the process. This description is displayed when someone presses F3 on the Process Name prompt, and also serves as the screen heading when using the "?" option to prompt for run time parameters.
At the Dict File Name prompt, enter the name of a file which contains fields that may be referenced later in the selection criteria, sort fields, or display fields.
If the records live in a file other than the file named in the Dict File Name, enter the appropriate file name in the Data File (if Diff) prompt. SB+ will then use the dictionaries from the dictionary file, but will select and read the records from the data file as named.
The Selection Criteria prompt is very important. This prompt tells SB+ which records are to be selected. There are a multitude of options available with this prompt, a number of which are described in the following sections.
Sort Fields contain a space-delimited list of fields to use for sorting the records to be displayed in the selection box. If you want to sort a field in descending order, append the literal "(D" to the field to be sorted in descending order. Note that the quotes as shown are for clarity and are not a part of the syntax. Additionally, the literal must be touching the field to be affected.
There are also a number of Options available for controlling the way a window looks, what is returned from the selection process, and the number of options that can be selected.
The Process After is a slot where you can link a process to modify the values that the user selected before those values are returned to the caller. This allows you to add your own sorting, duplicate check, or other special processing to the selected values.
Finally, the Window Co-Ords prompt allows you to enter specific coordinates for the selection window. (Note that you cannot change the location or size of the prompting window, if used.) This prompt is rarely used, because it allows the standard positioning to be overridden, therefore disrupting the standard look and feel of the application. Should you need to manually define your window coordinates, these window coordinates are entered in the same format as screen window coordinates:
xc,yc,width,depth
Where xc and yc are the column and row of the upper left corner, width is the number of characters that will be occupied by the display box, and depth is the number of rows that will be occupied by the display box. Note that the width and depth parameters do not define the number of columns or rows that are shown inside the box. Instead, they define the coordinates of the box.
From a user standpoint, the importance of intuitive help cannot be stressed enough. With solid, robust intuitive help throughout an application, users are rarely left wondering where to turn.
Two Intuitive Help Processes?
How Do Selection Processes Work?
Selecting From an SB+ Table
Selecting From a File
Selecting From Mulltiple Files
Selecting From an Existing Saved List
Selecting From a Multivalued List in Common
Selecting From a Multivalued List in an External Record
Multiple Intuitive Helps on a Single Prompt
Selecting a Single Record
Using SB+ Indices in Selection Processes
What Are All Those Options?