FilePro from Linux xterm or other terminal?

[Bill Campbell]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010, Brian K. White wrote:
>On 8/11/2010 11:09 PM, John Esak wrote:
...
>> PFEOF=46
>>
>> Is really a 2e which is a period and makes things on Windows look like my
>> Unix end of field markers.  I absolutely hate the giant triangles laying on
>> their sides.  Whever thought that one up has zero aesthetic
>> sensibilities.... :-)  Watch, I'll find out it was Ken now. .... :-)
>
>I don't like to ever terminate or delimit a field using a character that 
>may ever appear in the data unless you can do something like use a color 
>combo that is guaranteed never to appear on a screen or input prompt for 
>any other use but that....

I would go further than that and say that I don't see any need
for a field ending character other than a single blank character
at the end of the field before the text naming the next field.

In my curses based entry screens, I highlight the current field
in reverse video so the entire field is easily visible (and use a
red block cursor so that the character under it is visible).

One feature I liked on some character terminals was the ability
to specify different attributes for protected fields which could
be used to set a screen's trim (the text identifying fields) with
a dim attribute.  FilePro and other software would use this
feature to get around terminals that require a visible character
position on either side of a field to change attributes as
protected fields didn't require this space, and could have an
identifying attribute (e.g. reverse video).

I think the idea of protected fields on video terminals goes back
to the days of synchronous communications when the user filled in
all data on the field non-interactively, then submitted
everything to the server in a single transmission.  One very nice
feature of the Burroughs TD-xxx terminals and their COBOL was
that the submitted data would automatically be placed in a data
structure so one didn't have to do any parsing to get it.

Bill
-- 
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