Display Attributes

[Guest.Visitor]

I would like to underline the first character of a string on a display. Status where the S is underlined and the S and the rest of the field is white and display this. Any Help Roger

[B.Myrick]

Roger, Do you plan on using the field(s) in question for user input? If not, I would split the field into two fields, so that the first character displayed is dspatr(ul) and the other field next to it, not so. W Would S Should C Could Something like this. Hope this helps, Bret Myrick

[Guest.Visitor]

That would work because I do not plan to use the fields as input they are just for display. But I wanted them to look like this Status with the S underlined and no space between the S and t Roger

[Guest.Visitor]

Problem is in a 5250 data stream you need to have an ending attribute and that takes up 1 space on the display. If there is a Hex value for an underlined S, you could create what you are desiring. Else, no way. Sorry

[B.Myrick]

Roger, The problem lies with green screen DDS. Because the rpg and dds are character based, they use the space prior to and after the field to control the attributes. This is most noticeable when you overlay one video with another or a window over the first. Notice how the underlines, high-intensity, etc of the fields which are physically touched, are no longer underlined, high-intensity, etc. Also the window borders of the first video (where touched by the second) is no longer visible. That's the character based attributes of DDS. I tried to perform a WRITE operation to a video and overlay it with another that did not clear lines, had OVRATR and PUTOVR, but where the fields touched, boom! lost the attributes. I don't remember if you can user ALT/HEX to do this in a video. Don't remember the ALT/HEX command anymore anyway. Sorry couldn't be more help, but will watch for the smarter people's response, Bret Myrick

[David Abramowitz]

I remember an article in MC about a year to two years ago, that dealt with precisely this situation (actually it was colors, but the article was about display attributes in general). The article showed how to use display attributes, without reserving a space for the attribute byte. Perhaps a knowledgable MCer could point to the specific issue? Dave

[J.Wells]

I realize that this link may not help you with your problem, but it at least proves that there has to be some way to accomplish it!!! http://publib.boulder.ibm.com:80/cgi-bin/bookmgr/BOOKS/QB3AUK00/2.5.12?ACTION=MA TCHES&REQUEST=mnemonic&TYPE=FUZZY&searchTopic=TOPIC&searchText=TEXT&searchIndex= INDEX&rank=RANK#FIRSTHIT HTH, Joe

[G.Gaunt]

It is possible to abut underlined and non-underlined characters on 5250 screens, like this:

Status

You need to insert a Write Extended Attribute order before the "S" and before the "t". You can do that with the Dynamic Screen Manager APIs. You can read about that in "Color By Numbers With DSM" in Midrange Computing, July 1999.

[D.Handy]

Gene/Roger/et al, It is possible to abut underlined and non-underlined characters on 5250 screens Gene replied before I got a chance. The WEA data stream order is the way to do this, but it should also be noted that one must first test to see if the WS controller (or other connection means) supports the enhanced data stream orders. Although most of the 400's without an enhanced WS controller are largely retired these days, not all emulation/telnet/etc programs are written to support it. So it may be possible to do it, depending on your WS controller and connection method. Issuing a WEA order to a non-conforming device can result in display errors rather than just being ignored, so you must code to test for it. Doug

[Guest.Visitor]

David Abramowitz wrote: Perhaps a knowledgable MCer... Awww Dave...you're making me blush. HA HA HA!!! just kidding. ...could point to the specific issue? How about this: A tech talk from 1992: TechTalk: Controlling Display Attributes November,1992 Copyright 1992, Midrange Computing by Deepak Mohapatra Q. I would like to change the attributes of various fields on my screen through the RPG program. Is there a way to do this? All this time I was defining my fields in the display file with different indicators related to different attributes, and then I change the indicators on/off in my RPG program. This method seems too cumbersome, especially when there are lots of fields on the screen. Is there another way to do this? A. You could append an attribute byte to the beginning of any output field that you want to use special attributes on. You would also need to append an attribute byte at the end of the field to set the attributes back to normal. These derived output fields would have to be two bytes larger than the data (one byte for the beginning attribute and one byte for the ending attribute). If you use this method, you may want to create an array where each element represents a line on the screen and load the array element with each field and its attributes. or maybe this one... TechTalk: Embed Display Attributes in Text Fields by Editors February, 1998 Copyright 1998, Midrange Computing The display attribute (DSPATR) keyword is used in DDS to make a field appear in reverse image, in high intensity, underlined, blinking, or some combination of these. IBM doesn't tell you in its manuals that you can change the appearance of only a part of a field. The trick is to embed display attribute control characters within a text field. IBM calls these control characters P-fields, and you can find a list of them in chapter 3 of the DDS Reference manual (SC41-4712, CD-ROM QBJAUI00). For example, assume a display file defines a 60-byte character field called MSG (see Figure 13). If MSG contains control characters, portions of MSG will appear with other attributes. Figure 14 shows one method of accomplishing this. Most of the MSG field appears in normal text, but the contents of the Transaction variable are displayed in high intensity. - Anthony P. Gerasch Figure 13: MSG is defined as a 60-byte text field in a display file A R SCRN1 A MSG60O68 Figure 14: The word in the Transaction variable appears in high intensity F Mydspf CF E WORKSTN D Transaction s 20 D HI c const(x'22') D NORMAL c const(x'20') C eval Transaction = 'loan' C eval msg ='The' +HI + C %trim(Transaction) + NORMAL + C 'has not been approved.' C exfmt scrn1