HP Data Entry and Forms Management System (VPLUS) Reference Manual (32209-90024)

Chapter 3 65
INTRODUCTION TO FORMS DESIGN
EASE OF FORMS DESIGN
and processing specifications. The field attributes are the two lines of fields below the
portion containing the current field. For example:
Figure 3-8. The Field Attributes
Only the field attributes are discussed here. The processing specifications are described in
Section 4. If you can use the field attributes without change, the entire form design is
complete at this point. If not, you can specify any simple edits, as described below, or, if you
want to use the FORMSPEC processing specifications, described in Section 4, you can
enter appropriate processing specifications on theField Menu. As shown in Figure 3-4., the
form design sequence can be repeated until all forms in the file are defined.
Field Number
Although your form may have a maximum of 128 fields, a number between one and 256 is
assigned by FORMSPEC to each new field. This number is assigned to the field and is not
changed even if other field characteristics are changed. If, however, the field tag is
changed, this effectively deletes the field associated with the old tag. The field number is
deleted along with the field, and a new number is assigned to the field associated with the
new tag. The field numbers of a form can be renumbered in screen order with the
FORMSPEC batch mode command RENUMBER, as described in Section 7.
Field Length
This is the length of the field as determined by the number of characters entered between
the field delimiters during form layout. The length of a field cannot be changed on the
Field Menu. If you want to change field length, you must display the form layout and
actually change the field on the form. If you change the field length on the form, the new
length is automatically reflected in the Field Menus.
If you want to design a field that is longer than one line, you start the field with a bracket
(or
ESCAPE[) and terminate it with a closing bracket (or ESCAPE ]). At the beginning of
each intermediate line of the field, you enter an
ESCAPE [.
For example, as shown in Figure 3-9., consider a field that extends across three lines.
Figure 3-9. Example of a Field Extending over Several Lines
Col 1
Col 35
Col 80
[fielda
ESCAPE [
]