just an update

[John Esak]

Yes, and unfortuntely, I lost Laura's Help files when I installed 5.014.

And many people don't have LHF... but my comment is way beyond all that.
Both Laura's and the company's Help files are organized alphabetically. This
is essentially useless for both new and old users. Grouping the functions
under their appropriate "section" is the only way to go. I would have seen
it in the "File Functions" section regardless of whether or not there was a
"See @fstat" under the EXISTS() description. The @fstat would be there under
"File Functions" as well. I wish they would bring this thing back.

John


> -----Original Message-----
> From: filepro-list-bounces at lists.celestial.com
> [mailto:filepro-list-bounces at lists.celestial.com]On Behalf Of Bob
> Stockler
> Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2005 3:04 PM
> To: Fplist (E-mail)
> Subject: Re: just an update
>
>
> Top Post . . .
>
> Laura's Help Files [1] refers to @FSTAT[] when you look up
> Help for EXISTS().
>
> Bob
>
> [1] An improved set of filePro Help files available at:
>
>       http://www.hvcomputer.com
>
> John Esak wrote (on Sun, Dec 18, 2005 at 01:23:40PM -0500):
>
> | Rick,
> |
> | Don't know if you remember but we were trying to find out if
> some file had
> | size for the EDI  batch thing a couple months ago?  I kept
> saying there was
> | something like fstat() to do this.  I had read about it and
> catalogued it
> | away for future use sometime. You remember we looked for it for
> a while in
> | the Help, and then gave up. Finally, we concocted something
> else... like an
> | open() file and then filesize() I think.
> |
> | On the list, Ken just mentioned... why didn't I use fstat(), so I looked
> | again and it wasn't there AGAIN! I was just about to go crazy
> when I had a
> | thought... maybe he said @fstat?  I looked and there was the thing I
> | remembered reading about. It gives you *everything* you could
> ever want to
> | know about the last successful EXISTS() command.
> |
> | It's knowing where to look that counts, huh?
> |
> | Again, this is why I wrote the first online manual with a listing of
> | commands by *functionality* that was *not* alphabetical. In other words
> | under SCREEN functions, you would find DISPLAY, MESGBOX, SHOW,
> SCREEN, etc.
> | Any other way to do this is not as useful. Sure have an
> alphabetical listing
> | somewhere... but it won't be used 1% as much as a by-function
> listing. The
> | EXISTS() description would have a "See @fstat" and the @fstat
> stuff right
> | there as well, where it should be.
> |
> | I'm mean, seriously, everyone, anyone who's listening... Why,
> *how* would
> | anyone new or old to FP think to look through a listing of
> @arrays to find
> | something which works only with EXISTS()?  Why, how would
> anyone new or old
> | find the MESGBOX function if that was what they needed? All
> they would know
> | is they want a function that puts something on the screen, and
> asks for user
> | input. What would lead them to the letter "M"? I looked for my original
> | by-function listing of all filePro functions in the latest
> on-line manual,
> | and it wasn't there. (Maybe I missed it.)  Why in the world
> would this be
> | taken out?  I mean I had it grouped so nicely by Screen
> Functions, Output
> | Functions, Trigger Functions, Math Functions, File functions, String
> | Functions, etc., etc. Any programmer or any plain user could
> quickly find
> | all the filePro functions that pertained to the area needed. We
> all think in
> | terms of these areas... none of us could possibly think
> alphabetically about
> | what it is we want :-)  All we know is, we want to do something on the
> | screen, or print something, or etc. By using areas of functionality and
> | grouping all the filePro processing table functions and
> commands that way, I
> | thought I had achieved something really good. Nearly ever one
> of the filePro
> | Bible people let me know it was fantastic. If it is not in there, and I
> | didn't just "miss" it, please, could it come back? What say
> everyone else?
> |
> | John Esak
> | Visit The FP Room www.tinyurl.com/97y9u
> |
> | Author of:
> | The filePro Survivor Series
> | Interactive Training for filePro on CD
> | See samples at: www.valar.com/training
> |
> |
> |
> | John
> |
> | cc: fplist
> |
> | _______________________________________________
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>
> --
> Bob Stockler  +-+  bob at trebor.iglou.com  +-+
> http://members.iglou.com/trebor
> Author: MENU EDIT II - The BEST Creator/Editor/Manager for
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