Specifics
This type of documentation can only be used on AS/400 sites.
It requires only that you know how to work with the Screen layout manager and the IBM "SDA" screen design tool.
For every interactive layout, you can create a general help for all screen images but also field-level help for every data item in the layout. The help texts are entered the same way as the standard screen images (using the Screen layout manager).
You may also attach additional documents to every screen. This help is not used as interactive help but appears as additional material when the user folder is printed.
Documentation for report layouts is created with the Document editor.
During execution
The cursor location in the screen image determines the help to be displayed.
If no help was specified for a field, the general layout help will be displayed.
When printing the user folder
All screen images and output reports are printed, together with the help text specified in the formats (or screen images) of a same layout.
Advantages of this approach
Field-level help can be defined for every layout field.
Ergonomic presentation. Since the help text is entered like screen images (in formats), you can display them in windows and superimpose them.
Few resources are necessary.
Possible disadvantages
No help for transactions, but a general help for the layout.
The size of the help texts is limited by the screen size (24x80, 27x132, etc.), since they are designed as images.
The help text in the layouts cannot be modified during execution, since the layouts are compiled.
Additional information
The help text entered in form of DSPF formats is stored inside the formats that do or do not belong to the same layout.
To be able to identify the formats which contain helps in Adelia, the following convention has been established: the default name given by Adelia is "FOR" followed by the corresponding format code.
You should apply this convention when specifying help formats (when you create your help text with SDA, the format names can be chosen freely; you can specify this name when defining the help text).
For example: assume that we are creating help text in a layout using the DSPF format, that we want general help and field-level help for the customer code field in the first screen.
We can create two new transactions (03 and 04):
- one containing the general help (e.g, in format A1),
- the other containing the help for the customer code field (e.g. A2).
Recommendations:
- If you decide to use this approach, we recommend that you specify both formats in a different layout from the one to be implemented.
This enables you to modify the help text without having to recompile the operating layout.
- Do not use a data entry or a subfile control format as a help type format. This will result in an input/output error in certain cases.
- If you wish to display the help text in superimposed windows, you will only need to specify a few options in the specifications of your formats (ASSUME, ERASE, CLRL, etc.), or even easier, you will only need to use the features available in the Screen layout manager for creating window-type transactions.
Important note: Help using DSPF involves only one screen format. No program object is used.