TechTip: Messages with Pizzazz! PDF Print E-mail
Tips & Techniques - Programming
Written by MC Press Contributing Author   
Thursday, 13 January 2005 18:00

In the article "Reduce Indicator Usage," Doug Eckersley shows how to use display attribute fields to control display files. I use those same attributes to spice up messages.

If you compile the following short program and call it from a command line, you'll see what I mean.

PGM
DCL        VAR(&BLINK) TYPE(*CHAR) LEN(1) VALUE(X'28')
SNDPGMMSG  MSGID(CPF9897) MSGF(QCPFMSG) MSGDTA(&BLINK +
               *CAT 'By all means, PANIC NOW!') +
               MSGTYPE(*ESCAPE)

When the program sends the escape message, you will see the words "By all means, PANIC NOW!" on the message line (usually line 24) of the display. If you call the program from a dumb terminal, the message will blink. On an enhanced system, which supports color, the message will appear in red. The reason for the unusual message appearance is that the first character of the message is hexadecimal 28, which is one of those display attribute fields Doug Eckersley wrote about.

You may use more than one display attribute in a message. In the following code fragment, written for a color monitor, parts of the message are shown in blue, white, and green.


  DCL        VAR(&BLUE) TYPE(*CHAR) LEN(1) VALUE(X'3A')
  DCL        VAR(&WHITE) TYPE(*CHAR) LEN(1) VALUE(X'22')
  DCL        VAR(&GREEN) TYPE(*CHAR) LEN(1) VALUE(X'20')

  SNDPGMMSG  MSGID(CPF9897) MSGF(QCPFMSG) MSGDTA(&BLUE +
               *CAT 'This is' *CAT &WHITE *CAT 'the' +
               *CAT &GREEN *CAT 'msg') MSGTYPE(*ESCAPE)

To keep from having to specify a display attribute in CL programs, you can store display attributes in a message description instead. Whenever the message is displayed, the attribute will be applied. To see this in action, create a message file (or use one of your existing ones) and add a message to it.

CRTMSGF    MSGF(somelib/MYMSGF)
ADDMSGD    MSGID(XYZ0002) MSGF(MYMSGF) MSG(X'2E50F1') +
              FMT((*CHAR 78))

The first character of the message is hexadecimal 2E, which stands for blinking, underscored, high-intensity text on a dumb terminal and red, blinking, underscored text on a color display. Hex 50F1 represents the character combination &1, which i5/OS and OS/400 recognize as a substitution expression in message descriptions. The value you specify in the MSGDTA (message data) parameter when you send the message will replace the &1 expression.

SNDPGMMSG  MSGID(XYZ0002) MSGF(MYMSGF) MSGDTA('Let''s +
              get excited!!!!!') MSGTYPE(*ESCAPE)

I developed these techniques after reading the tip "Display Status Messages in Reverse Image," which is on page 68 of the MC Press Desktop Encyclopedia of Tips, Techniques, and Programming Practices.

James Gates has spent most of the past 15 years working with AS/400 and iSeries systems.


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Last Updated on Thursday, 13 January 2005 18:00
 
DaleB63
I had played around with this once before. Support for attribute bytes in a message is variable, depending on what is displaying the message. It works with status messages. Messages sent to IBM functions (such as the *ESCAPE example), depend on the program. While testing I found that PDM shows the attributes, but a menu (such as MAIN), does not. Sending to a queue, and then DSPMSG, also doesn\'t work. DSPMSG replaces the attribute bytes with RI blocks, and it all shows up as normal (green). On the positive side, the list of attribute values is documented in the DDS Reference: Display Files, under the DSPATR keyword. Use the table for nonprotected fields (x\'20\' through x\'3F\'). The other table gets converted to displayable characters; e.g., x\'A0\' is ~ (tilde), and x\'A1\' is µ (LC mu).
Guest.Visitor
I have had this posted on my bulletin board for some time: Color Code Attributes For 5250 Displays Green 20,21,24,25 White 22,23,26 Red 28,2E Turquoise 30,31,34,35 Yellow 32,33,36 Pink 38,39,3C,3D Blue 3A,3B,3E
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R.Cozzi
I started using this back in 1986 or so when Greg Veal published an article on doing this in "Q38 Technical Journal". It is interesting that IBM hasn\'t done much with it todate. The courious thing to me, however is that the author of this TNT article uses the BLINK attribute in the example--the very thing user interface designers say not to use. Oh well, doesn\'t matter as blink is converted into RED on most display nowadays anway. Fun article!
David Abramowitz
Here\'s where different size fonts become useful in 5250 land. For instance you could send a message that says: Are you going to blow itagain? Dave
Guest.Visitor
I hesitate to use explicit colors in code. With users constantly changing their screen colors, important messages with explicit colors may be hard to read, or even indistinguishable from the background.
dacust
John Driscoll said: "I hesitate to use explicit colors in code. With users constantly changing their screen colors, important messages with explicit colors may be hard to read, or even indistinguishable from the background." That\'s why we should get rid of PCs and go back to the old 5250 dumb terminals. That way they CAN\'T change the colors. -dan
David Abramowitz
[i>Daniel Stephens wrote: That\'s why we should get rid of PCs and go back to the old 5250 dumb terminals.[/i> Welllll, , , , at least it would prevent the users "X"ing out of their sessions. Dave
baglo1_1@yahoo.com
I used colored messages for some time prior to posting codes on: ukpi1b "Add color to messages" 10/23/02 11:44am Issak Brender "TechTip: Same Screen, New Colors" 12/13/02 9:35am While it brings some excitement to programmers, it is less appreciated by most users and management. For expended list of hex values check http://www.as400pro.com/servlet/sql.tipView?key=682&category=RPG
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