Moving Around in StarView

The StarView utility operates in exactly the same way as Ingres forms-based tools. A brief summary of how to use forms follows. For a complete explanation of Ingres forms-based tools, see the Forms-based Application Development Tools User Guide.

Operations Menus

An operations menu is displayed at the bottom of each frame. The following figure shows a typical StarView frame:

You can cycle through all the menu selections by pressing the menu key repeatedly. (The key on your keyboard that acts as the menu key depends on your terminal and the individual key mappings you have chosen.)

To move the cursor from the window to the operations menu, press the menu key. To return to the window, press the Return key.

Long Operations Menus

Some operations menus are longer than the width of the frame. The presence of additional menu items is indicated by either a > at the right end of the menu, a < at the left end, or both.

You can cycle through the entire set of menu options by pressing the menu key repeatedly.

Moving Between Operations Menus

When you choose an operation from a menu, you often are presented with another frame containing a submenu of operations.

To return to the original menu, use the End operation. If you leave a submenu with the Quit operation, you quit StarView and return to the operating system prompt.

Options for Selecting an Operation

There are two ways to select an operation from the operations menu:

• Selection by function key
• Selection by name

Select an Operation by Function Key

To select an operation that has a function key (or key combination) mapped to it, simply press that key. This invokes the operation regardless of where the cursor is when you press the key. The function key that is mapped to an operation is shown in parentheses after the operation.

Select an Operation by Name

To select an operation from the menu by name, follow these steps:

1. Press the menu key.

   The cursor is moved to the menu.

2. Type either the full name or enough letters to uniquely identify the operation you want to select, and then press Return.

   For example, if the operations Find and Forget are displayed on the same menu line, you must type at least fi to identify Find and at least fo to identify Forget.

Context-sensitive Help

Context-sensitive help is available, based on the current task or field with which you are working.

You can obtain help by placing the cursor on the operations menu line and typing h for Help. You also can press the Help key to get help at any time. Sometimes, help is provided on several screens.

• What to do

  Describes the current screen and the operations menu

• Keys

  Describes the function and control keys and their current definition

• Field

  Displays a list of valid values for a field or the display format, data type, and validation check, if any, for a field

• Help

  Displays the type of Help available

• End

  Exits from any Help screen to the previous screen

To make a selection on a Help screen, type at least the first unique characters of the operation and press Return, or press the key listed in parentheses after the operation. To move through the Help screens, use the cursor movement keys specific to your terminal. You can see a list of the keys available by selecting the Keys operation from the Help menu.

Error Messages

You are provided with context-sensitive error messages that indicate both the error type and the error code.

Explanations for the errors are also provided. When you receive an error message, a single-line message is displayed with a prompt that tells you to press either the End key or the More key.

To see the explanation of the error, press the More key. After reading the explanation, press Return to return to your work in progress.

To exit the message without reading the explanation, press the End key at the prompt.

For additional information on error message formats, see the System Administrator Guide.