Re: ok, I made a green screen with radio buttons

["Bruce Odum" <bodum@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I have already done this on several programs and it does look nice. You can take this one more step and add mouse control. There are keywords that will let you program functions on each key for the mouse.  You can do some neat things with the subfile and the mouse using this and knowing where  the mouse pointer is.

----- Original Message -----

From: boothm@earth.goddard.edu

To: midrange-l@midrange.com

Sent: Saturday, October 30, 1999 6:47 PM

Subject: ok, I made a green screen with radio buttons

I just made a simple little application.  Here's the salient features:

- all functions in the application work normally, and also with the mouse or the arrow keys and cursor.
- the subfile has a fully functional scroll bar.

- if checkbox 1 is checked then the first field of the subfile record will be pink if field5:1 ="!".
- if checkbox 2 is checked then the subfile's fifth field will be displayed.

- there are 4 logical files built over the physical file, one each for column 1 through 4.   The user determines which logical to use, thereby determining which of the first 4 columns is in ascending order, by clicking on the column heading of choice.  

- there's a pair of radio buttons in the heading.  The act of selecting an item in the subfile does one or the other of two functions depending upon which of the two radio buttons on the heading is selected.

- the footer record uses push buttons instead of command keys, although the command keys function, too.

My conclusion is that it makes sense to add these devices to our toolbox.  I can see where the radio buttons and check boxes are attactive, add to the clarity and simplicity of a screen, and remove the user's ability to answer "T" to a yes/no question.  

Now that I've messed around with this,  Ron's comments about the menu bar has me intrigued.

The JPG is 135k.  Anyone that'd like to take a look, let me know.  Its too big to just attach here.