Hiding formats

[Bruce Easton]

On 12/5/13 6:59 PM, Bruce Easton wrote:
> On 12/5/13 5:51 PM, Jean-Pierre A. Radley wrote:
>> Bruce Easton propounded (on Thu, Dec 05, 2013 at 04:22:47PM -0500):
>> | Reading the recent discussion regarding "Auto Exit" and qualifiers
>> | brought to mind again the need to hide formats of various kinds. Menu
>> | flags/processing can address this to a degree, but what we have for
>> | indexes would be great if it was extended to other formats.
>> | Specifically, I would always like an application user to be able to load
>> | an output format [for print form, a browse format, or a selection set,
>> | but would like to be able to only restrict them from saving changes to
>> | formats or loading ones that were marked to be hidden (a la indexes).
>> | For qualifiers it would be nice to restrict users from selecting ones
>> | that have been marked to be hidden (when -md is in play).  Screen
>> | formats already have an advantage in this regard historically since the
>> | developer has been able to hide screens by naming them as something
>> | outside of 0-9.
>>
>>
>>
>> "What we have for indexes" could be slightly improved.
>>
>> I've created indices that I need to use on my clients' systems, and when
>> some users were sometimes annoyed or confused to see them as a choice, I
>> opted for the useful ability to make them hidden.
>>
>> Maybe because I'm nearing my 82nd birthday, I've been known to forget
>> the existence of some hidden indices when I could have made good use of
>> them.
>>
>> So could we have a PFIXHIDE environment variable, defaulting to YES, so
>> that indices created to be hidden are in fact hidden, but when set to NO
>> will force such indices to nevertheless show up in the Index Selection
>> menu?
>>
>> Or, if other filePro objects could also be hidden, then just a PFHIDE
>> setting to be able to "unhide" all of them..
>>
> Good point, JP.
>
> When the advent of the -fp flag for request output, it became a little
> easier to hide dangerous one-time programs since a corresponding output
> format didn't have to exist.  But each time one wants to set up such a
> one-time processing this way, i.e. to remove a select set of records at
> a customer's request, one must create a script or add it to an admin
> menu and then consider if other flags should be added for sorting,
> etc.**  It seems part of Define Output would allow you to mark the
> format as hidden (to the Form print key from clerk), then a user who
> doesn't have access to filepro's development menu could not accidentally
> run such an output request. I can see how some developers would also use
> such a feature to also restrict forms that show up from the Form print
> key in clerk to only be actual forms (and not report type formats).
>
> ** I guess you could set up a script on a menu-passworded menu option
> that would do something like:
> # code to read prcname and otherflags from user, then
> ~dreport - -fp $prcname $otherflags
>
> or maybe just password a special added option for dpromenu to do similar.
>
> But I see qualifiers being just like indexes with regard to hiding.
>
> Then there are browse formats (main, not lookup).  I can't tell you the
> number of times I've encountered an application where the option for
> changing the browse format was disabled usually for the purpose of
> protecting the format the developer made and called. Consequently, users
> on these systems had no idea how to change a browse format.  Sometimes
> it's disabled for data security, but it's a lot of flexibility taken
> away from the end-user for viewing their data in the (access to) all
> (incl save) or one choice for the developer.
>
> Bruce
>
*With the advent*

Bruce