MTX MISMgr ([log in to unmask]) wrote:
: Hi,  I'm new to the group and so far, enjoy the postings.  I've been
: around 3000's
: since 1982 and the love affair continues......I hope someone can help me.
:    Problem,   Send messages to f-keys while a user is in 'setmsg off' mode
:      it can be done, EASYTIME does it.   I wrangled some spl code from HP
:      off the record,   I dont have spl, am trying to get the calls to work
: in either
:      basic or cobol, so far not alot of sucess, BUT! still working on it
: when time           allows.   Well enough said...  Heres the call snippet
:  formsg(
: inbuffer,-1,0,-1,0,0,0,0,0,outbuffer,outbuffer_len,outlen,dest_ldev,contro
: l)

: In BASIC, i get a program error #17 :STT UNCALLABLE,  i'v tried PM and
: some other things as well..no change, one more item, the obvious answer to
: the problem is using WARN, but it strips out control characters and other
: necessary evils.

BASIC is right, FORMSG is indeed an uncallable low-level compatibility
mode routine.  It does most of the dirty work for GENMSG, another
CM uncallable routine.  Most MPE engineers who have done any work in CM
know about GENMSG, but I'll bet no more than a handful have dug as far
as FORMSG.  I would recommend you don't either.  Whoever at HP "wrangled"
that code to you was really "off the record" IMHO.

As to how to address your original problem (loading function keys), I
don't really know, unless you can temporarily override SETMSG OFF.  That's
also potentially dangerous, as many user applications issue a SETMSG OFF
when they enter block mode.  I don't know enough about terminal block mode
to know if the terminal will accept and process function key escape
sequences in block mode, but even if they do I'd be wary of it.  Those
applications use the function keys for their own purposes, and would
probably not respond correctly if the keys' contents were replaced.
Well, you could overwrite the *labels* and leave the contents alone, but
then users would not know what buttons to push.

There's also a way to displace the function key mini-windows on the screen
and replace them with any message that fits in that space.  I don't know
how to do that, and I don't know if block mode affects that operation.

Enough rambling...

-Larry "had a whole suite of function key routines once" Byler-