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M I C R O F O C U S
D I A L O G S Y S T E M V 2.5
C H A R A C T E R
V4.1.10
Running Under The DG/UX
Operating System Version R4.11MU03
On The AViiON
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NEW FEATURES
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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INTRODUCTION
NEW FEATURES
INTRODUCTION
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This document lists features which are not in your printed manuals.
These features are documented in the on-disk Document Update Notes. New
features available only to subscribers to a Maintenance Agreement (see
your main release notes) are documented in the file dsannu.1.
Sections in this document will be added to at each maintenance release.
Subsection headings show the releases when entries were first included.
NEW FEATURES
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V2.5.64
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o The datablock can now be passed to DSUSRFMT.
Please see "Datablock optionally passed to DSUSRFMT" in the New
Features Documentation, dsannu.1.
You need to have installed the "New Features" disk (see your main
release notes) to use this feature.
o With the year 2000 moving ever closer many companies are now
wondering if their applications will be affected by the century date
change. Dialog System V2.5 has now been enhanced to help you find and
fix date problems in your GUI and Character screensets.
Please see "Year 2000 Support" in the New Features Documentation,
dsannu.1.
You need to have installed the "New Features" disk (see your main
release notes) to use this feature.
o CEOF will now clear a numeric field to zero.
Please see "CEOF clears numeric fields" in the New Features
Documentation, dsannu.1.
o Dates in the format MMDDYYYY and YYYYMMDD are now explicitly
supported in Dialog System.
Please see "New date formats" in the New Features Documentation,
dsannu.1.
V2.5.57
=======
o Two new options have been added to the command line format for
running the DSCHAR development system in batch mode.
!oc copyfile-name Generate a copyfile.
!ob copyfile-name Generate a copyfile with no screenset-name
prefix.
o This release of Dialog System adds a new file validation type to the
existing set. This is user validation.
o Although there is no mouse support under UNIX, you can create
screensets with mouse control, so that if the screensets are used in
DOS or OS/2 the mouse will be effective.
o A new run-time configuration setting, DEC-SUPPRESS-CURSOR-RIGHT, has
been added. This behaves in the same manner as SUPPRESS-CURSOR-RIGHT,
except it applies only to suppressed decimal fields. The default
behavior is that the cursor position on entry to the field is on the
decimal point character. When NODEC-SUPPRESS-CURSOR-RIGHT is specified,
the cursor position on entry to the field is on the leftmost visible
field digit.
o An additional timeout mechanism has been implemented, causing a
regular invocation of a user-supplied program. This allows a degree
of systems control to carry out various functions - for example, to
initiate regular backups, or to cause an emergency shutdown.
o When you are deliberately defining recursive dialog, you can press
Enter to override the warning message produced.
o When a field was defined as SUPPRESSED and had the property AUTO, and
you moved the cursor to the leftmost position of the field,
autoskipping into the previous field occurred only if the cursor was
positioned at the leftmost character position of the field. If the
contents of the field had leading (suppressed) zeros, the cursor was
never able to reach the leftmost position. This enhancement causes
autoskipping when the cursor is on the leftmost visible field
character when cursor-left is pressed.
o Mouse Support has been added to Dialog System. This support includes
two new dialog key mnemonics (MSL and MSR), one new dialog function
(GOMOUSE), and a new configuration file directive to enable the
mouse support (MOUSE-ENABLE).
o Character dialog now supports National Language Support (NLS) for the
folding of alphabetic characters entered by the user into panel
fields.
o When generating panels from the CUA definition menu, you can generate
additional dialog that allows the mouse to be used to control
the menu bar and the drop down menus when the application is run.
o The SSTRAN character conversion utility now also supports attribute
conversion. Two sample attribute conversion files are shipped with
Dialog System especially for attribute conversion.
o The dialog function CALLOUT has been enhanced, such that if the
numeric parameter following the callout program name parameter
is set to 0006 (the usual value is 0000), then DSCHAR will now
move the value of RETURN-CODE passed back by the callout program
into the dialog register $REG, and then set RETURN-CODE to zero.
This allows the callout program to directly affect subsequent
dialog without requiring the use of a data item in the data
block.
o It is now possible for a CALLOUT program to explicitly set the
dialog exception condition. This feature is supported only for
type 0006 CALLOUT, where the content of RETURN-CODE is monitored.
When RETURN-CODE is set to -9999 by the CALLOUT program, then
on exiting to Dialog, the exception condition will be set,
RETURN-CODE will be reset to 0 and $REG remains unchanged.
o An enhancement has been made to allow compatibility of TIMEOUT
behavior with that in the Dialog System V1.1. The original behavior
is regarded as incorrect and was subsequently changed. This
enhancement is a special feature and it is not generally recommended
that it be used.
TIMEOUT only behaves as in V1.1 if the directive TIMEOUT-SAVE-DATA is
present in the run-time configuration file dsdef.cfg.
The effect is that when a timeout occurs, the data entered so
far into the input field is moved to the data block with no
validation.
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Micro Focus, COBOL Workbench, and Animator are registered trademarks, and
AAI, Dialog System, and Session are trademarks, of Micro Focus
Limited.
Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
IBM and OS/2 are registered trademarks of International Business Machines
Corporation.
CICS, CUA, and Presentation Manager are trademarks of International
Business Machines Corporation.
Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
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@(#)Vrn/dsfeat.1/2.5.08/25Apr97/nrV
Copyright (C) 1992-97 Micro Focus Limited.