HELP SUBSTATEMENT IN FORM LAYOUTS

The HELP substatement of the FIELD statement creates a box that contains a help message for a corresponding field or executes a trigger that is specified.

The help message is displayed or the trigger is executed when the user presses the help key. The default help key is a question mark (?). The help key can be changed by setting a new value to the system field @HELP_CODE.

The cursor does not stop at a field with the display type of SHOW; therefore, a help box for a SHOW field will not be displayed.

SYNTAX

to paste a window

/ HELP row column number_of_rows number_of_columns rendition
/ {TEXT text}

row	is an integer constant that specifies the row position of the screen where the top left corner of the help box is displayed.
column	is an integer constant that specifies the column position of the screen where the top left corner of the help box is displayed.
number_of_rows	is an integer constant that specifies the number of rows in the help box.
number_of_columns	is an integer constant that specifies the number of columns in the help box.
rendition	specifies the video attributes for the help box. More than one video attribute may be specified by separating the attributes with plus signs.
	The valid video attributes are: @NORMAL specifies normal video attribute. [default setting] @BLINK specifies blinking video attribute. @BOLD specifies bold face video attribute. @REVERSE specifies reverse video attribute. @UNDERLINE specifies underlining video attribute.

SYNTAX

to perform a trigger

/ HELP
/ PERFORM trigger_name

trigger_name	specifies a Process Module (PM) trigger to execute. This allows flexibility in specifying the action that takes place when the user presses the help key.
	Statements in the performed trigger that reference system fields used for menu and form control (such as @FILL_ACTION, @NEXT_ITEM, and @MENU_ACTION) are ignored. For example, @NEXT_ITEM cannot be set to change the next item to be processed.

EXAMPLE

/HELP 15 5 5 50 @NORMAL

When this help box is displayed on the screen, the top left corner of the box is at row 15 and column 5 of the screen. The help box has 5 rows and 50 columns with normal rendition.