Re: 4GL Help Numbers: Yuchh!

Jacob Salomon <jake@apparel.net> wrote: :Hi family, : :I fishing for ideas again. : :Since I first experienced the 4GL HELP mechanism, with its help numbers :hard-coded in the 4GL code, I have wished for help labels as strings. :With strings I can use some kind of acronym for what the help message :means, which module or component of the application the help message is :for. I entered a feature request for such a modification to the help :mechanism AGES ago but that has vanished down the oubliette. : :FourGen used a 4-part composite key (OK, 3 parts identify the body of :help text) and this sounds pretty good in principle. However, the :application I want to add help to was not generated with FourGen so this :would be a mighty big wheel to reinvent. : :Another idea I had was to write my help source file similar to the 4GL :help source, only using my desired acronyms instead of the hard-coded :numbers. I would then pipe my help source through a perl script that :would: : 1. Assign [sequential] numbers to the acronym strings. : 2. Insert the acronym/assigned-number into a database table. You could conceivably also put the same acronym strings in your 4GL code. Then in step 2 replace these acronyms in the 4GL code with the assigned numbers before you compiled the code. You would of course allways work with the 4GL code and help files with the acronyms when changing your code. I can see several problems with this system, but if you worked hard enough at it then may be... If it's worthwile is another issue. :Of course, I could not use the HELP nnnn options in Input and menu :commands; in all cases I would have to use ON KEY clauses. But since I :have not written a blessed line of HELP code yet, this is not a major :obstacle. : :Can anyone out there improve on or refine this? Has anyone done this :already so that I don't have to reinvent a wheel? : :Thanks. :-- : -- Jake (In pursuit of undomesticated aquatic avians) : :+-----------------------------------------------------------+ :| Impeccable Logic: A thought process which successfully | :| resists chicken bites | :+-----------------------------------------------------------+ Nils.Myklebust@idg.no NM Data AS, P.O.Box 9090 Gronland, N-0133 Oslo, Norway My opinions are those of my company The Informix FAQ is at http://www.iiug.org