background color. That color may be specified when the panel is initially created. Text-based screens have a background (cont.)
color of black only. Obviously, some combinations of text colors and background colors will be more pleasing and easily (cont.)
read than will others. This can vary from one individual to another, also.
Your preferences are coded as: "when the application program issues this* text color, and the GUI panel background (cont.)
color is *that* color, then display it as *such-and-such* (which is a combination of a foreground color and a (cont.)
background color). There is one other variable which we omitted from the above description of your preference coding; (cont.)
it is the "emphasis code". This is merely a yes or no (Y or N) code indicating whether the application program is (cont.)
trying to emphasize (highlight) this field on the screen. In text mode, emphasis is normally accomplished by increasing (cont.)
the brightness of the field, changing its color, reversing the foreground and background colors (reverse-video), (cont.)
underlining the field, or causing it to blink. Which method is employed depends largely on the type of terminal or (cont.)
monitor equipment being used and its inherent capabilities. MAGEC has the built-in capability of automatically (cont.)
converting any of the various highlighting options into appropriate ones for each particular type of hardware, thus (cont.)
relieving the application programs of having to handle different display types internally.
Perhaps the most common type of text-based hardware includes a built-in color scheme which helps identify protected and (cont.)
unprotected (enterable) screen fields, and indicates which fields are being emphasized. This color scheme, being the (cont.)
default of the hardware, is a generally-accepted standard which has been proven to work well in almost all (cont.)
applications. It is helpful to know this standard when setting your GUI color preferences since most of the data fields (cont.)
on most of your application screens will probably use these colors by default.
The standard default colors are:
UnProtected, no emphasis Green
UnProtected, with emphasis Red
Protected, no emphasis Blue
Protected, with emphasis White
In order to help you to set your preferences for these standard colors more quickly, GCOSEE provides PF keys (and toolbar buttons, in a GUI mode) for each of these settings.
When any GUI panel is being generated, the developer can specify what background color that panel is to have. The (cont.)
default background color is White (actually, a light grey color -- True white, as you and I know it, is called: "Bright (cont.)
White"). The GCOSEE PF keys and toolbar buttons for each of the standard text colors also assume a White (cont.)
background.
Now, let us suppose that you are looking at a GUI panel for an application. Assume that the panel is White (default (cont.)
background color), and that the enterable (unprotected) data is being displayed in green (the default color for (cont.)
unprotected, non-emphasized data). Suppose that you do not like the appearance of this green-on-white display and would (cont.)
like to change it to appear as blue-on-white.
To enable you to quickly alter the preferences and then re-view your application display using the new settings, you (cont.)
might wish to swap MAGEC windows. This will give you two active windows, one for doing the GCOSEE function, the other (cont.)
for doing your application function. To swap windows you could press PF9, or in a GUI environment, mouse-select the (cont.)
SWAP icon from your toolbar.
On the GCOSEE screen, you would then type in the display color combination you wish to alter. This is done in the top (cont.)
three parameteres. In the example given, you would type "2" for Green into the text color parameter, "N" for no (cont.)
emphasis into the emphasis code, and "7" for White into the GUI panel background color parameter. Then press (cont.)
ENTER.
**Note:** In a GUI environment you could have accomplished all of the above by merely mouse-selecting the UNPROTECT REGULAR icon from the toolbar on the GCOSEE screen.
On the GCOSEE screen, just below the three parameters you filled in, MAGEC will display the GUI foreground and (cont.)
beckground color combination being used for the combination of parameters shown (where you typed them) above. (cont.)
Descriptions will be shown to the right of each code to help you to correctly interpret it.
**Note:** You will likely notice that the default settings specify a GUI field background color which is the same as (cont.)
the panel background color for all non emphasized data, and a field background color which contrasts with the panel (cont.)
background color for all emphasized data. You can alter this at your discretion, this is merely a convenient pattern (cont.)
which is readily understood by most users. You may prefer to use a contrasting background color for all enterable data, (cont.)
whether or not it is emphasized, or any other scheme that might help you to read the screens more quickly and (cont.)
accuarately.
You can now alter the values set into the GUI foreground and / or background color settings (the lower two parameters (cont.)
on the screen) and press ENTER; i.e. type a "1" for Blue into Foreground color. Your profile record will be updated -- (cont.)
the changes take place immediately.
Now, swap windows back to the application screen you were looking at originally. This can be done by pressing PF9 (cont.)
again, or using the GUI icon. You should now see the same display as before, but with the new color combination used (cont.)
for unprotected, non-emphasized data.