How to upgrade a menu from FoxPro for DOS

[plepkowski]

I'm a very old, retired, CCOBOL and ASSEMBLY programmer with some experience with dBase and FoxPro from the command window. A charity has asked me to get an old FoxPro for DOS program working on a donated used computer which contains VFP6.0. I have gone over the data files and they seem to be OK. The indexes have been converted to CDX type and that works. The old DOS program worked by relying on append and browse commands which all work. The needed reports were all hard coded with space() to fill lines nicely and they work.

The only thing that doesn't work is the old character screen menu. It had 10 @SAY and 10 @GET commands and a READ. Then it routed execution to .PRG files with a DO CASE ... ENDCASE loop. How do I generate a nice looking windows menu which responds to the mouse and hot keys using the menu generator (CREATE MENU). I can't figure out where the calls to the procedures (.PRGs) have to go into the properties of each menu pad or how to make a key hot. The help file is not much help. OOP is not something we used in the COBOL world.

Anybody got a good simple book that will tell me how to make a menu work.

Paul

 

[TamarGranor]

I answered this in the other section where you asked.

Tamar

 

[rob444]

Use the Menu Designer from VFP6.
It will be clear to you.

Tamar, I could only find this thread from Paul, no other ones.

Rob.

 

[Mike Lewis]

Paul,

OOP is not something we used in the COBOL world.

Really? I vaguely remember OOP versions of COBOL from the 1970s. Not that they were very well known. I wonder if they are still around.

Mike


__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

My sites:
Visual FoxPro (www.ml-consult.demon.co.uk)
Crystal Reports (www.ml-crystal.com)

 

[plepkowski]

Mike,

I never ran into OOP versions of COBOL. I started using COBOL about 1959 when the first version was delivered by big blue. I never used anything that didn't come in a blue box.

Paul

 

[plepkowski]

Tamar,

By the other forum, I assume you mean the old compuserve forum. I say your reply there, thank you. I've been on compuserve since about 1986.

The menu generator and its help files are not all that clear to a procedural programmer. Give me big blues ASSEMBLER any old time.

Paul

 

[rob444]

Paul,

If you just start using the menu generator you'll "grow" into it.
Just run such a menu and see what it does.
I assume that the options are not too difficult to understand when you create a new menu-line?

If you still "do not get it" please state where you're going of the scale...

Rob.

 

[plepkowski]

OK, I've gotten the menu to work, the database is in good shape, and the hand coderd reports are working.

Now the only problem I have is the View menu. I left the View submenu in the generated menu, but when the program calls a browse window the usual Browse Menu you get from the command window with the selection under View to change from Browse to Edit, (horizontal to vertical orientation of fields) does not appear. The View submenu seems to change a lot from the command window, it just shows [Toolbar] until you USE a data file, then it shows [Browse, Table Designer, Toolbar], then when you command BROWSE it shows [Browse, Edit, Append, Table Designer, Grid Lines, Toolbars].

How do I get the program's menu to include [View - Browse, Edit] but not [View - Append, Table Designer, Grid Lines, Toolbars] during program execution?

Paul