The General tab of the Options dialog is always available. It controls
the general options for use of the tool. The first set of options affect the
whole product (i.e. not just the Structure Editor component - when it
is being used as part of the integrated Workbench)
:-
- User Interface Style - governs the "look
and feel" of the application (e.g. Windows, Motif or 'metal')
- Treat .jsp files as - governs whether files with a .jsp extension
are treated as JSP Tool or JSP-Cobol file
format
- External Editor - gives the path of an external text editor that
can be used to edit operations, conditions, headers or trailers by use of
the relevant right click menu. For example under Windows NT/2000 this might
be set to C:\WinNT\Notepad.exe
The next set of options only affect the Structure Editor itself :-
- Only allow one file to be open at a time - by default the Structure
Editor is a multiple document interface (MDI) application meaning that more
than one structure file can be edited at any one time, this setting can be
used to make the Structure Editor a single document interface (SDI) application
so any open structure file is closed before another is opened. Some users
may find this style less confusing.
- Use monospaced font for operations/conditions - by default operations
and conditions are displayed in their respective editing
areas in a proportionally spaced font (like the one in use here) this
tends to lead to more compact display of code but can be misleading when editing
because spaces cannot be used in the normal way to align columns. This option
uses a monospaced font instead.
- Long backtracking indicators - with this option disabled backtracking
indicators are displayed using single characters (e.g. "?") in keeping
with legacy tools such as PDF and JSP Tool, this option uses more readable
words (e.g. "posit", "admit" instead)
- Show file options on toolbar - controls whether buttons for opening,
saving, closing and creating new files are presented on the tool-bar.
These options are all additionally available from the File
menu, so users with limited screen resolution may wish to remove them
from the tool-bar for clarity
- Fold quit trees at startup - this option can be used to automatically
fold
subtrees containing a combination of a quit node and a sequence of operations,
this results in a tree display more in keeping with the legacy JSP Tool editor.
- Save backup files - when this option is set, each time a structure
file is saved, the previous version is first renames as "Backup of <original
file name>". These backups can be used to retrace to the previous
version in the event of data loss etc...
- Include filename in structure tab names - if ticked, the structure tabs used both the structure name and the filename. This may help when opening multiple files simultaneously
- Tree view cursor increment size - this controls by how many pixels
the structure is scrolled when moving around it using the cursor keys (or
mouse scroll wheel)
The next set of options relate to the representation of page-breaks
(i.e. nodes that are tagged to be printed
on a new page). In JSP Tool, page-breaks were indicated by a textual prefix
to the node name (typically "PAGE_"), these were then stripped off
when the code was generated. The Structure Editor uses a visual representation
of page-breaks (a small green diamond), however it also emulates the JSP Tool
approach for compatibility and to allow page-break information to be stored
using legacy file formats.
- Indicated by boxes beginning with - indicates the prefix that will
be used to indicate a page-break
- Display page-break prefix on screen - if set then the Structure Editor
will automatically prefix page-break node names - this is for familiarity
with JSP Tool users
- Allow textual control of page-breaks - this option controls whether
or not the prefix will be displayed when a node-name is edited, if so manually
inserting or removing the prefix can be used as an alternative way of setting/clearing
page-breaks. The normal way is using the pop-up
menu.