screens other than 0-9 (was: Re: Windows 2003/IIS 6 issues...newand improved ones.)

[Fairlight]

This public service announcement was brought to you by John Esak:
> Why do you feel it is an oversight?  If you can't get to the screens with a
> keystroke from the IUA screen listbox, why show them?

Because they're actually there and meant to be used.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, I had used 0-9 already, and I needed
more.  Let's say I had special-purpose ones that had a lower priority than
0-9, but still needed to use it (like a "debug" screen).

Why, when entering IUA, should I be any less able to select a screen named
"debug" or "fairlight_only" or whatever it is, than 0-9?  They're still
valid screens.  I can create and select them from dscreen, and dscreen has
no problems showing that they exist.

I'm forced to wonder why I should have to create a special menu option, or
at the very least enter a special command just to get at something that
should be just as easily accessible at 0-9.

I'm really not seeing the linkage between being able to access it via
keystroke in *clerk and being able to access it from a listbox when
starting out.  You can't access any reports with a keystroke in report,
processing tables in cabe, etc.  But they're selectable when you supply no
input.

It's a matter of primarily ease of access.  Secondarily, it's a matter of
product inconsistency across the breadth of the product.  I really don't
care about the latter, but I do care about the former.  I -really- should
be able to just hit B for IUA in runmenu, select my table, and select my
screen--no arbitrary limitations.  To me, this seems like refusing to list
all tables in ddefine for some arbitrary reason.  Speaking of which,
ddefine has the exact opposite problem.  Try just touching "test.txt" in
your PFDIR once.  Run ddefine and see it show up in the listbox of
"databases"...even though it's clearly not anything of the sort.  I just
tested it and it's never been fixed.  (I know people that [strangely] like
to store tarball files in there...that's how I discovered it does that.)

But my primary gripe is lack of quick and easy access to the screen.  I
shouldn't have to jump out of runmenu or make a special menu to do this.
I don't honestly care that I can't hit one key in clerk and bring up the
screen.  What I care about is ease of launching it regularly from runmenu
without special consideration, and being able to select it just as I would
any other option not pre-specified.  I defined it, I intend to use it, I
don't see a need for an arbitrary rule telling me I can't get there from
here unless I take a detour through Timbuktu.

mark->
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