SMF FORMS FOR END USERS

This section assumes that the Screen Management Facility's (SMF) system fields are set to their default values. The developer is responsible for proper keycode settings for an application if they are different than the default values.

MOVING FROM FIELD TO FIELD

The cursor stops at fields where data can be entered or changed. The arrow keys on the keyboard are used to move the cursor up, down, or across the screen. The arrow keys can be used to move from field to field. The Return key or the Tab key can also be used to move to the next field.

The cursor automatically moves to the next field if the number of digits or characters entered from the keyboard equals the width of the data entry area.

HELP

Display the help text or perform the help trigger by positioning the cursor and pressing the Question Mark (?) key. After reading the help text, go back to the form by pressing the Return key. If there is no help text defined for an item, the terminal beeps when pressing the Question Mark (?) key.

REFRESHING THE SCREEN

Enter Control-R to redisplay the current screen. This is helpful if unwanted data has appeared on the screen such as mail notification messages or noise from the communication line. The refresh Key can be changed by storing a key value into @REFRESH_CODE.

ENTERING DATA ON THE FORM

If an invalid character is entered (such as an alphabetic character in an integer field), the terminal beeps and the character is ignored.

Character Fields - Each time a character key is pressed, the cursor moves from left to right.

Integer Fields - When entering digits into an integer field, the digits shift to the left and the cursor remains at the right most column. As they are entered, the digits are displayed on the screen according to the specified picture format.

Numeric Fields (with decimal points) - Before entering anything, the cursor is positioned at the column immediately left of the decimal point. As digits are entered, they shift to the left and the cursor remains at the same column position. The cursor moves to the right when the decimal point is entered. The digits are displayed on the screen according to the format specified by the developer.

Date Fields - Enter dates in one of the formats shown in Table 1. Use a format that matches the type of date that is used at the current installation. After a date field has been completely entered, the date is redisplayed with its specified format.

American	European	International
MM/DD/YY	DD/MM/YY	YY/MM/DD
MM/DD/YYYY	DD/MM/YYYY	YYYY/MM/DD
MM-DD-YY	DD-MM-YY	YY-MM-DD
MM-DD-YYYY	DD-MM-YYYY	YYYY-MM-DD
YYMMDD	YYMMDD	YYMMDD
YYYYMMDD	YYYYMMDD	YYYYMMDD

Table 1 Data Entry Formats

DELETE/RUBOUT KEY

While entering a value into a data field, the only editing allowed is deleting the characters using the Delete key or Rubout key. However, edit mode can used with a complete set of edit functions for character fields.

When moving the cursor to a field which already has a value displayed, the Delete key cannot be used to edit the displayed value. Only the new value can be re-entered.

CHARACTER FIELD EDITING

When entering or changing data, edit mode can be entered to modify the data instead of re-entering the entire field. Enter Control-V (V) to go into edit mode. To exit edit mode, enter another Control-V.

The possible editing operations are shown in Table 2.

Operation	Command	Explanation
Move left	left arrow, Control-D (^D)	Moves the cursor one character to the left. If the cursor is already at the beginning of the character string, the cursor will not move.
Move right	right arrow, Control-F (^F)	Moves the cursor one character to the right. If the cursor is already at the end of the character string, the cursor will not move.
Move to end	Control-E (^E)	Moves the cursor to the end of the character string.
Move to beginning	Backspace, Control-H (^H)	Moves the cursor to the beginning of the character string.
Delete left	Delete/Rubout	Deletes one character to the left of the cursor
Delete forward	Control-K (^K)	Deletes the character pointed to by the cursor (“delete forward”).
Delete from beginning	Control-U (^U)	Deletes all the characters from the beginning of the field (data entry area) to the character to the left of the cursor.
Delete word	Linefeed (<LF>)	Deletes the word to the left of the cursor. A "word" is a sequence of characters separated by any white space characters or special characters. Note that the following are not considered special characters in edit mode: % * ^ _ ~
Insert/Overstrike	Control-A (^A)	Toggles insert and overstrike mode. When entering the editor, overstrike mode is the default setting.
Enter/exit	Control-V (^V)	Enters and exits edit mode.

Table 2 SMF Character Editing Functions

NOTE: Once in edit mode, the screen control characters stored in the system fields shown below are disabled:

@HELP_CODE @TERM_LIST
@END_CODE @CANCEL_CODE

The terminal beeps if one of the characters above is typed during edit mode.

The terminal beeps if Control-V Command is used on a non-character field.

The terminal also beeps if the number of characters entered exceeds the field width. In this case, the cursor does not advance to the next data field as it does in non-edit mode.

When exiting edit mode, if the data entered does not fill the entire field width, the cursor remains in the current data field. Otherwise, the cursor advances to the next data field automatically.