Datafile Menu Configuration

Note: Much of this article applies only to the Diamond or Premier levels of the Datafile product.

You can alter the menus in Datafile by signing on as CONFIG and selecting either 'Main Menu Design' or 'Application Menu Design'. The main menu refers to the large buttons you see in grey on the left hand side of the initial Datafile screen. Application menus are the sub-menus from this that appear on the right hand side. The main menu has up to 15 configurable entries that appear in one list. Application menus are split into left and right - each of which has up to 9 configurable entries.

To create a new menu entry you first select the name of the menu file you wish to change - for example SL.D03 for the Sales Ledger Menu. Next select the default program that is offered when configuring the menu, in this case SL.EXE.

You can then choose to configure either the left or right sides of the menu. By entering an option name in a free slot and pressing <ENTER> you invoke the pop-up screen where you can enter the program you wish to run.

You can either enter 'A' to send the user to a further sub-menu, or 'P' to run a program option.

If you select 'A' you are then asked to enter the name of the submenu. You can use the F4 key or click on the question mark to search for extant menu files. For submenus there is no parameter to be input and you can immediately choose whether you wish the user to be forced into a particular company ID or not. Leaving this box blank will allow the user to continue in the current company. Entering a 3-digit company code will automatically flip the user into that company.

You can protect the menu option from unauthorised users by either entering a password or attaching a security level. You can also choose to write an entry showing the user-id, date and time to the Datafile log file each time the menu option is selected.

To help the users understand what the program will do when they select the menu option, you can write a short 'help text' which will pop-up when the mouse hovers over the menu.
Finally, you can link the menu to a desktop backup set so that the program will force the user to run a backup of any relevant files before updating. You can access the list of backups by pressing F7 in this box and configuring the backup set in the usual way.

Selecting 'P' from the first pop-up box allows you to set the parameters for running a program. This can include any Windows or DOS program ending in .COM, .EXE etc. The pathname, however, must be less than 40 characters long, and must conform to DOS naming convention; ie no long filenames or folder names, long names to be shortened to the first 6 characters followed by ~1.

Normally you would want to run a Datafile program and for these you can just enter the name of the program without the pathname - so just SL.EXE instead of G:\df\prog\SL.EXE. In the parameter box you can select which SL function you want. Pressing F7 brings up the choice of 'Premier Codes', 'Profiler Options' or 'Profiler Applications'. The last of these brings up the list of profiler applications to remind you of what has been set up.

Choosing 'Premier Codes' takes you into an F4-type screen where you can browse the database of all the possible program options.

Once you have found the option you want you can double-click it to insert it automatically into the parameter box.

If you want to run a profiler routine you can selecti 'Profiler Options', which allows you to drill down through the profiler application, menu number and specific profiler option and will automatically insert it in the right format into the parameter box. The format is XXX/Y/Z where XXX is the 3-letter application code, Y is the menu number and Z is the number on the profiler menu relating to the option you want to run. So for example DEM/1/1 will take the user into the DEM profiler application, first/master menu, option one on the menu.