Markup Language Skeleton Customization › Specific Customization › Tips and Techniques › Adding Field-Specific Help Buttons

Adding Field-Specific Help Buttons

On a green-screen (either dumb-terminal or using emulator software), it is possible to create field-specific help, which can be accessed by pressing a key (such as F1 or the HELP key) when the cursor is at a particular screen location.

This can be mimicked within a generated skeleton by the addition of field-help buttons, if a field is generated as follows:

<!--Dynamic Field-->
<TD BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" COLSPAN="050" HEIGHT="20">
(_f0737)
</TD>

The following addition adds a small ? button next to the field in question, that, when pressed, sends a signal to the (IBM i) IBM i to make it believe that the HELP key was pressed and the cursor was situated over the field in question:

<!--Dynamic Field-->
<TD BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" COLSPAN="050" HEIGHT="20">
(_f0737)&nbsp;<INPUT TYPE=”SUBMIT” VALUE=”?” NAME=”_KHL0737”>
</TD>

The &nbsp is an HTML non-breaking space that creates a small space between the input field and the button. You can change what is displayed on the button by changing the value of the VALUE attribute Help! in the following example:

<INPUT TYPE=”SUBMIT” VALUE=”Help!” NAME=”_KHL0737”>

You can experiment by adding Help buttons using various offsets to mimic the cursor-sensitive functionality of the underlying green-screen, even where that cursor-sensitive help is not related to a specific input field.