Wish List Item - "Public" file name and fpSnow

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Mon, Nov 19, 2007 at 03:08:20PM -0500, Bruce Easton wrote:
> Scott Walker wrote Saturday, November 17, 2007 9:52 PM:
> > I think in ddefine you should be able to have a "public" file name
> > field.  It should be as long as possible.  Ddefine should also let me
> > have a "locked file message field".  
> 
> Good ideas.  Regarding the public filename, in addition to having an 
> environment var, as John said, to say which expression to use in error 
> messages (which I see as "friendly mode" vs. "debug mode"), I would 
> also allow the "public" name stored by ddefine to be accessible via 
> clerk/report to other programs through a system-maintained field.  
> This way the developer can easily and consistently express the file's 
> "friendly name" throughout an application in building popup menus, 
> screen headings, custom warnings, etc. 
> 
> Regarding error messages - in general, I agree with Mark that being 
> too friendly with error messages is probably not wise, especially if 
> one is trying to intercept and reword something from the system that 
> could indictate a system/program coding problem.  But in this case, 
> in particular the locked file/record filepro errors, I think we are 
> talking about explanations, not errors really, from filepro as it 
> does its job of "traffic cop" between programs and records.

So *my* piggyback is "please let us define the error page ourselves, so
that we can make it look like this:

An error has occurred in your application while trying to $VERB
$NOUNs.  Please hit H to hardcopy this screen, and then call for
support at $PHONE.

(stgcntrc, lookup failed, key '34987' not found)"

Do not get me started on "log the errors to a file" and "send email"...

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                   Baylink                      jra at baylink.com
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