User Access Utilities › Menus › Other Uses for Menus

Other Uses for Menus

Here are some other ways menus can be used:

• As a means of providing selection options from your own programs.
• As a framework to hold documents. Say that you have a large document such as a system specification, that requires repeated editing. You could set up a menu with a separate option to edit each section. A final option could print the complete document.
• As a training tool. Users may go to Menus and examine help text without actually executing options. Additional explanatory text can be added to the menu displays. Problem determination ‘trees’ can be created to guide users through areas requiring operator intervention.
• As a framework for CL commands, that is, to present commonly required CL commands in a specified order, with or without override parameter values. This can be especially useful for functions where a lot of operator intervention may be required, or where frequent procedural changes are required. For instance, you could set up a menu for your backup.

1. DSPDKT ??DEV(DKT01)??DATA(*SAVRST) See what’s on diskette
2. ?DSPLIB See how big library is
10. SAVLIB FRED DEV(DKT01) CLEAR(*ALL)/* Mondays */
11. SAVLIB ALFONSO DEV(DKT01) CLEAR(*ALL)/*Fridays/
12. SAVLIB GREGORY DEV(DKT01) CLEAR(*ALL)/*  Both days */
13. SAVOBJ CYRIL/*ALL DEV(DKT01) OBJTYPE(*JRNRCV) CLEAR(*ALL)

• As a presentation tool. If you need to present information using the computer, you can use Toolkit menus to provide a framework. The headings and text can be placed on menus, interspersed with calls to the appropriate programs or functions that illustrate your argument or explanation. Course handouts can be prepared directly from the printed menu images.