Character windows - commands

abort, exit

The Reset Terminal sequence from the terminal parameter file is issued before the program exits. This sequence is entry 4 in Section 3 (Standard Control Sequences) in the terminal parameter file.


caption

The WS_CAPTION style flag has no effect under character windows. See Windows style flags.


Changes to an object’s appearance by the disable and enable commands are dependent on the object style and palette in the terminal parameter file. If different border and shadow combinations have been specified for the disabled and enabled state, or different pens or properties in the object palette, the change is now effected.


dialog, input

If the BACKSPACE key is pressed to the beginning of a textbox and beyond, the previous data is restored.


draw hline, draw vline


[style = style_no]

Optional clause, available for use with character windows only. The style_no is an integer in the range 0-16, defining the style of the line. The default style is 1. See Graphic line style for details and illustrations of the available line styles.


The standard pre-defined windows winerror and wininfo are used for the display of error messages and information messages respectively.

RELATED TOPICS

Character windows - pre-defined standard windows

Pre-defined standard windows


exec

It is normally necessary to redisplay the screen with the redraw command when the child process terminates.

The real cursor is placed at the screen position equivalent to the last at | move cursor to command. The child process is then executed. Output from a child process appears at the real cursor position. In most cases, the only practical way to run an exec is to close all windows except the task window.


execu

This command is a variant of exec.

Under character windows, the exec command issues the Reset Terminal sequence prior to calling the child task and the Initialise Terminal sequence when the child task returns. These sequences are entries 4 and 5 in Section 3 (Standard Control Sequences) in the terminal parameter file.

The execu command is identical to exec except that no sequences are issued to reconfigure the terminal for a non-Sculptor environment. The execu command should only be used to call processes that produce no screen output.

Under GUI the exec and execu commands are identical.


prompt

The Prompt command and event functions section can be ignored.


vdu

Issue a control sequence from the terminal parameter file


SYNTAX

vdu #section, entry[[subscript]] [in window_id]

This command may be used from within a program to output a control sequence from the terminal parameter file. The physical cursor is moved to the current cursor position for the specified window, and the control sequence is output.

section

The section must be an integer, specifying the section of the terminal parameter file that contains the sequence to be output. Not all sections contain suitable sequences for output. The sections containing suitable sequences may be divided into two groups, as follows:

  1. Sections whose sequences may safely be used to change the screen display

6 Special characters

7 Special text

8 User text

  1. Sections whose sequences should not be used to change the screen display

3 Standard control sequences

4 User control sequences

Sculptor works on the basis that it has full and sole control of the screen. By doing so, it can provide true, overlapping windows and optimise all screen output to achieve maximum performance. If a sequence from one of these sections alters the screen display, the redraw command will be unable to restore the screen to the same state. It should therefore be restricted to sequences that do not affect the screen display. A valid use for the vdu command in conjunction with Sections 3 and 4 would be to trigger an external function of the terminal, such as a screen print to a printer connected to the terminal.

Sections 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8 are the only valid section numbers for the vdu command.

entry[[subscript]]

The entry is the entry number of the sequence to be issued. Any expression that evaluates to the number of an entry in the selected section is valid.

The optional subscript indicates the sub-entry number of the sequence to be issued. If it is absent or set to 0, all sub-entry sequences for the selected entry are issued.

[in window_id]

If the in window_id clause is present the sequence is issued starting from the current window cursor position of the specified window.

If the in window_id clause is absent, the window which was the subject of the last at command (which positions the window cursor) is selected. If no at command has yet been executed in the program, the task window is used.

It is recommended that the window_id always be specified.

The following graphics characters are defined in sculptor.h for use with the vdu command (vdu #6,…) :

SLGHB

1

SLGLRT

9

SLGVB

2

SLGRRT

10

SLGTLC

3

SLGC

11

SLGTRC

4

BGL

31

SLGBLC

5

BGM

32

SLGBRC

6

BGD

33

SLGT

7

BGS

34

SLGIT

8


EXAMPLE

vdu #8, 5[2] in Window4

RELATED TOPICS

Terminal parameter files

at