Using Prompter Forms
Creating Prompter Forms
Create prompter forms as normal VL forms.
Their Ancestor property must be se to VF_AC017 so as to inherit standard behavior.
Associating Prompter Forms with Fields
To associate prompter forms with fields, open the RAMP window and click on the session object in the navigation tree. The Session properties are displayed:
The Special Field Handling area is used to define the forms to be associated with fields.
The two entries in the example indicate that:
If an input field named txtSTATE is on any 5250 destination form, and it is where the cursor/focus is, and the user presses function key F4 (or the equivalent button) then the VL form named P_STATE is to be invoked to handle the request.
If an input field named txtPHONE is on any 5250 destination form, and it is where the cursor/focus is, and the user presses function key F5 (or the equivalent button) then the VL form named P_PHONE is to be invoked to handle the request.
How do Advanced Prompter Forms Work?
Whenever the user performs the actions required to invoke one of the VL forms the following happens:
- The HANDLE_PROMPT Function in the script is invoked to show the prompter form associated with the field. Optionally additional information can be passed to the form using this function.
- If the form has not been used already in the session it's uInitialize method is invoked. This allows it to do first time processing.
- The values of all the named fields on the current 5250 destination form are extracted and made available to the VL form.
- The VL form's uShow method is then invoked so that it can prepare and position anything that it wants to show to the user.
- When the user makes a selection, the VL form can alter the value of any named field on the current 5250 destination form.