Module men - Menus in Local Memory
The module men (menu module) is the program interface to the DataView menus. Menus are available in DataView for two different purposes:
- To execute object independent (top menu) and object dependent (widget menu) functions.
- To support entering contents in fields (field selection menu).
The menu object is describes by the following attributes in DataView:
- ident number of the menu
- menu name
- maximum frame length of the menu
- ident number of the menu frame window
- ident number of the menu text window
- pointer to the corresponding selection structure
- freely assignable menu buffer
A menu contains a list of items. If you define userexits at the items, DataView executes them when the item is selected. The number of items in a menu is not limited and does not need to be defined before.
If the DataView event loop is in menu state, an active menu exists. It will remain active until the user confirms a selected item and DataView deletes the menu from the screen.
Important functions
- dal_men_ret_act
- standard function for reading the Id of the last active menu.
- dal_men_ret_sel
- standard function to detect the active item in the menu.
- dal_men_ret_buf, dal_men_set_buf
- fills or returns the entry in the user-configurable menu buffer.
- dal_men_map_men
- Outputs a menu in local memory at a screen position which must be specified.
- dal_men_hid_men, dal_men_del_men
- Removes a menu from the screen or deletes it completely out of local memory.
- dal_men_loc_row, dal_men_fre_loc, dal_men_chk_loc
- Locks or unlocks an item or checks for locking.
- dal_men_srt_men
- Sorts the items in a menu.
- dal_men_chk_men
- Checks whether a menu exists in local memory.
Functions must be used with great care
- dal_men_cre_men, dal_men_wri_row, dal_men_res_men
- Only create a menu with all corresponding attributes in local memory if the definition of the items depends on variables only known at runtime. In all other cases you should interactively design the menu as data object and create it with standard functions dal_dmi_cre_men from the data base.