Use of Control-Z
--------------30AF9798E57A4987C5092FC1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm currently re-working a number of programs, originally written many years ago with 4gen's case tools. A few years ago, I removed all dependencies on 4gen but many programs still resemble generated code. One of the characteristics is the use of Control-Z to "zoom" on a field look-up. Control-Z has become rather awkward now as I'm working on a Linux system with X-Windows, not an SCO console. Control-Z is the standard "suspend job" key. My question relates to style: Is it considered better form to redefine the suspend key (ie stty susp ^whatever) or use ^something-other-than-Z to initiate zooms? The big problem is, of course, current users. They would be unhappy if faced with new/different behaviour. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Scott Holmes http://www.pacificnet.net/~sholmes sholmes@pacificnet.net Independent Programmer/Analyst Passport 4GL HTML Composer Informix 4GL, SQL --------------------------------------------------------------------- There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy --------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------30AF9798E57A4987C5092FC1 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit <!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"> <html> I'm currently re-working a number of programs, originally written many years ago with 4gen's case tools. A few years ago, I removed all dependencies on 4gen but many programs still resemble generated code. One of the characteristics is the use of Control-Z to "zoom" on a field look-up. Control-Z has become rather awkward now as I'm working on a Linux system with X-Windows, not an SCO console. Control-Z is the standard "suspend job" key. My question relates to style: Is it considered better form to redefine the suspend key (ie stty susp ^whatever) or use ^something-other-than-Z to initiate zooms? The big problem is, of course, current users. They would be unhappy if faced with new/different behaviour. <pre>-- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Scott Holmes <A HREF="http://www.pacificnet.net/~sholmes">http://www.pacificnet.net/~sholmes</A>; sholmes@pacificnet.net Independent Programmer/Analyst Passport 4GL HTML Composer Informix 4GL, SQL --------------------------------------------------------------------- There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy ---------------------------------------------------------------------</pre> </html> --------------30AF9798E57A4987C5092FC1--
IMHO, the users never need to know about suspending/resuming "jobs", but ctl-Z is easy to remember for them. BTW, Here is the code from a 4gen startup script: # trap the interrupt (to prevent the script from being interrupted when # interrupt is pressed in application programs) and disable the suspend # and desuspend keys. trap "" 2 stty susp "^-" 2> /dev/null stty dsusp "^-" 2> /dev/null Steve -- --- Steven L Cooper Manager, Systems Engineering --------------------------------------- Please reply to NG only, so others may be enlightened... The views expressed here are mine and you can't have them...unless you agree! Scott Holmes wrote in message <7o76ah$2kb$1@news.xmission.com>... > > >--------------30AF9798E57A4987C5092FC1 >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > >I'm currently re-working a number of programs, originally written many >years ago with 4gen's case tools. A few years ago, I removed all >dependencies on 4gen but many programs still resemble generated code. >One of the characteristics is the use of Control-Z to "zoom" on a field >look-up. Control-Z has become rather awkward now as I'm working on a >Linux system with X-Windows, not an SCO console. Control-Z is the >standard "suspend job" key. My question relates to style: Is it >considered better form to redefine the suspend key (ie stty susp >^whatever) or use ^something-other-than-Z to initiate zooms? The big >problem is, of course, current users. They would be unhappy if faced >with new/different behaviour. > >-- >--------------------------------------------------------------------- >Scott Holmes http://www.pacificnet.net/~sholmes > sholmes@pacificnet.net > > Independent Programmer/Analyst Passport 4GL > HTML Composer Informix 4GL, SQL >--------------------------------------------------------------------- > There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, > than are dreamt of in your philosophy >--------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > >--------------30AF9798E57A4987C5092FC1 >Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > ><!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"> ><html> >I'm currently re-working a number of programs, originally written many >years ago with 4gen's case tools. A few years ago, I removed all >dependencies on 4gen but many programs still resemble generated code. >One of the characteristics is the use of Control-Z to "zoom" on a field >look-up. Control-Z has become rather awkward now as I'm working on >a Linux system with X-Windows, not an SCO console. Control-Z is the >standard "suspend job" key. My question relates to style: Is >it considered better form to redefine the suspend key (ie stty susp ^whatever) >or use ^something-other-than-Z to initiate zooms? The big problem >is, of course, current users. They would be unhappy if faced with >new/different behaviour. ><pre>-- >--------------------------------------------------------------------- >Scott Holmes &nbs p; <A HREF="http://www.pacificnet.net/~sholmes">http://www.pacificnet.net/~sholmes </A> > &nb sp; & nbsp; sholmes@pacificnet.net > > Independent Programmer/Analyst &nbs p; Passport 4GL > HTML Composer &n bsp; Informix 4GL, SQL >--------------------------------------------------------------------- > There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, > than are dreamt of in your philosophy >---------------------------------------------------------------------</pre> > </html> > >--------------30AF9798E57A4987C5092FC1-- >
Scott Holmes wrote: > I'm currently re-working a number of programs, originally written many > years ago with 4gen's case tools. A few years ago, I removed all > dependencies on 4gen but many programs still resemble generated code. > One of the characteristics is the use of Control-Z to "zoom" on a > field > look-up. Control-Z has become rather awkward now as I'm working on a > Linux system with X-Windows, not an SCO console. Control-Z is the > standard "suspend job" key. My question relates to style: Is it > considered better form to redefine the suspend key (ie stty susp > ^whatever) or use ^something-other-than-Z to initiate zooms? The big > problem is, of course, current users. They would be unhappy if faced > with new/different behaviour. If the punters are used to using ^Z to zoom, they are not used to using ^Z to suspend jobs. So, you can define the suspend key to something else for these people and leave ^Z alone for them to zoom with. What you choose as an alternative for suspend is more problematic -- unless you happen to deal with Turkish, maybe y-umlaut (0xFF) would work? -- Jonathan Leffler (jleffler@informix.com, jleffler@earthlink.net) Guardian of DBD::Informix v0.60 -- see http://www.perl.com/CPAN #include <disclaimer.h>