Function key

The Function key component is responsible for recognizing function (PF) keys. This component is used to transform static text on the host screen representing a function key into a button or link which your user can click. Because function keys appear differently on different host systems, ZIETrans gives you flexibility in configuring the different parts. For example, a host screen might contain the following function keys:

F3: Exit

F4: Back

F5: Fwd

A function key can be rendered by the following widgets:

The following figure shows how a Function key component might appear on your host screen:

Figure 1. Function key component example

String before leading token (a space)
Start delimiter (#, signifying a number)
Delimiter (an equal sign (=))
String after description (a space)

The following settings can be configured for this component:

String before the leading token: Optional. The string that must precede the start delimiter. You can specify more than one value, separated by the vertical bar (|) character. For a function key candidate to be recognized, it must be preceded by this value.

Start delimiter: Required. The string that marks the beginning of the potential function key. You can specify more than one value, separated by the vertical bar (|) character. Any of the values will be recognized as beginning a function key. This value can contains a "#" (pound sign) – which will be evaluated as "a number" during recognition.

Delimiter: Optional. The string that separates the start delimiter from the description. You can specify more than one value, separated by the vertical bar (|) character.

String after description: Optional. The string that immediately follows the description. The default is " " (two spaces) to allow for detection of multiple word descriptions for function keys.

When using Function key component settings, consider the following example. Suppose a host screen has the following function key descriptions on it:

F1=Help F2=Open F3=Exit

where there is only one space between each description. ZIETrans will recognize this as three individual function keys even though the default value for the String after description setting is " " (two spaces). This is because the Function key component searches for a Start delimiter, a Delimiter, and then the String after description. But, if it finds a new Start delimiter before finding the String after description, then the start of a new function key description is assumed.

Note:

The ZIETrans Function key component only recognizes and renders F# keys, PA keys, Enter, and Clear. To disable recognition of Enter and Clear, remove the last # from the start delimiter definition.
The ZIETrans Function key component does not recognize other host function keys such as Help, PageUp (also called rollup), PageDown (roll down), System Request, Attention, and Print. These other functions are available on the host keypad. You can also add these host keys to a ZIETrans transformation using the ZIETrans Tools menu item.
If you use the Drop-down (selection) widget to render the Function key component in default rendering, multiple drop-down widgets may be rendered in the preview and during runtime. To correct this during runtime, in the source for the application.hap file, locate the <renderingItem ...> tag for the FunctionKeyComponent with the SLDropdownWidget. Then change the value for the setting, keepOutputTogether, from false to true. The preview will continue to display multiple drop-down widgets.
If you use the function key components in default rendering and want them to appear on different lines in your transformation, you must use the <BR> tag or map them to a table to force the move. This can be done by viewing and editing your transformation under the Source tab.