10.6 The Action Bar Control Table

The information that defines the content and layout of an action bar is contained in a table called the "Action Bar Control Table".

Each process of type "ACT/BAR" has its own entries in the action bar control table.

The content of the table can be reviewed and changed at any time by using the option accessible from the Process Definition Menu.

If you attempt to review the action bar control table entries associated with a process that is not of type "ACT/BAR", a message will display indicating that the process does not have action bar control table entries.

In this situation you can use the "Miscellaneous Process Details" facility accessible from the Process Definition Menu to change the process type from SAA/CUA to ACT/BAR.

Take care if making such a change, because all the associated RDML functions will need to be recompiled to allow them to display the action bar on lines 2 through to at most 4 of the screen panel.

The action bar control table defines the content and layout of the action bar and its associated pull downs as follows:

Action Bar Option Definition

Up to 18 action bar options can be defined.

Each action bar option needs the following attributes defined to make it usable:

A/Bar Keyword (Text Identifier)

Specifies the text that is to appear in the action bar to identify this action bar choice. Some things to note are:

• Try to use just one word.

• Use upper and lower case characters. -

• Support for bi-directional and DBCS languages is provided.

• Conform to the CUA 1989 guidelines.

• CUA has guidelines for standard options such as "File" and "Edit".

• The help option is automatic. You do not have to define it.

Sequence

Specifies the sequence that the action bar option is to appear in the action bar. The number specified must be in the range 1 to 18 and unique within the action bar.

AB$OPT Field Value

AB$OPT is a field defined in the LANSA Repository. Some things to note about the value you specify here are:

• If it isn't in the dictionary, define it as alpha (length 3).

• The value you specify here is placed into field AB$OPT when this action bar choice is used.

• Do not use values CUR or ALL, as they are reserved to mean "current" and "all" to built in function SET_ACTION_BAR.

• The field is accessible to RDML functions.

• It allows them to decide exactly which action bar choice was used to cause them to be invoked.

• One RDML function handling multiple action bar choices can have good performance implications. Refer to 10.18.4 Sample Program: All 3 Functions in One Program for an example of this programming technique.

• Value specified should be unique within this action bar.

• Standards for AB$OPT values should be established.