9 5 The LANSA Implementation of Action Bars

LANSA Application Design

9.5 The LANSA Implementation of Action Bars

LANSA implements action bars at the process level.

This means that a process, which normally appears as a menu, can actually be presented to the user as an action bar instead.

Hopefully, you are familiar with the idea of a process being presented as a menu of "functions" (ie: RDML programs). From the list of functions shown on the process menu, you select the one you wish to use and it is then executed.

A process menu with 3 functions could be visualized like this:

 

 TESTPROC                        Test Process                         

                                                                      

 Enter number of function or place cursor on line, press Enter.       

                                                                      

  _  1. Function 1                                                    

     2. Function 2                                                    

     3. Function 3                                                    

                                                                      

 

 

By defining this process with "Process Menu/Style" as ACT/BAR (rather than SAA/CUA), it could be arranged into an action bar like this:

       Action 1                                                        

________________________________________________________________

    |                |          

    |  1. Function 1 |                                                 

    |  2. Function 2 |                                                 

    |  3. Function 3 |                                                 

    |________________|                            

 

 

or like this (with the pulldowns shown for each of the 3 action bar choices):

       Action 1    Action 2    Action 3                                

_____________________________________________________________

     |                  |      

     |   1. Function 1  |                                              

     |   2. Function 3  |                                              

     |__________________|                        

                                                                       

 

       Action 1    Action 2    Action 3                                

 _____________________________________________________________

                 |                 |              

                 | 1. Function 3   |                                   

                 |_________________|              

                                                                       

                                                                       

 

       Action 1    Action 2    Action 3                                

 ______________________________________________________________

                            |                 |   

                            |  1. Function 3  |                        

                            |  2. Function 1  |                        

                            |  3. Function 2  |                        

                            |_________________|   

 

 

Setting up a process to work as a menu is easy.

Setting up a process to work as an action bar is more complex because the action bar options, pull down choices and the actual RDML functions that are invoked when they are used must be defined to LANSA.

The information that defines the content and layout of an action bar is contained in a table called the "Action Bar Control Table".

This is described in detail in 9.6 The Action Bar Control Table.