Changing Attribute Colours on the fly ...

[DoubtfulBadger]

Anyone who uses edit highlighting will know that when you over-type a character, the colour changes from its original colour to yellow.

I'd like to do the same thing in a panel I'm developing but I can't see how to do it. Before anyone asks, I've R'd TFM.

I'm using a shadow variable and I thought that using a USERMOD definition might give me what I want. I've referred to panel ISREDDE2 (the main edit panel) but nothing's leaping out.

Any ideas?

[don.leahy]

Originally Posted by DoubtfulBadger

Anyone who uses edit highlighting will know that when you over-type a character, the colour changes from its original colour to yellow.

I'd like to do the same thing in a panel I'm developing but I can't see how to do it. Before anyone asks, I've R'd TFM.

I'm using a shadow variable and I thought that using a USERMOD definition might give me what I want. I've referred to panel ISREDDE2 (the main edit panel) but nothing's leaping out.

Any ideas?

I don't see how you can do it either. Until you hit Enter, or another action key, the mainframe does not know what you've done to the screen. I *think* the real-time highlighting when you overtype a character is done by the emulator you are using.

[DoubtfulBadger]

Since my original post I have (re)discovered that you can change the over-type colour by entering HIlight, then selecting Colors from the action bar then selecting 1. Overtype Color ..., so you're not stuck with yellow.

It's been years since I used a dumb terminal but I'm pretty sure that dumb terminals would exhibit the same behaviour.

[don.leahy]

So much for my idea. I guess the Editor must do something to the 3270 data stream to cause this to happen. Interesting.

[nadel]

Set the attribute byte that defines the input field in your dynamic area to the color you want.

[DoubtfulBadger]

Sorry Doug,

I don't really know what you mean. Could you expand on your answer?

[PascalQ]

you saw that they use those defs in the ispf editor, right?

<attr attrchar=0B TYPE=DATAIN  INTENS=LOW  CAPS=IN  FORMAT=%MIXED 
                  COLOR=%ZPLEXCLR>                                
<attr attrchar=0C TYPE=DATAIN   INTENS=LOW  CAPS=OFF FORMAT=%MIXED
                  COLOR=%ZPLEXCLR>                                

if it's urgent and noone answers you could post sample code if you want, I might try to play around with it, but don't like to create panel with area and program from scratch

[nadel]

Sorry Ken. Away for a few days. But as mentioned, when you define the DATAIN attribute which creates the input field in your dynamic area, assign it the colors you want.

[PascalQ]

right, so while the folks are IPLing my system...

did my own panel experiments...

So, again let's say we have

0B TYPE(DATAIN) INTENS(LOW) CAPS(IN) COLOR(&ZPLEXCLR) FORMAT(&MIXED) 
B  TYPE(CHAR) COLOR(BLUE)                           
L  TYPE(CHAR) COLOR(RED)                

You'll then
1. format the field that you want the user to overtype with '0B' (in the ZDATA or whatever you use as data part for your dynarea)
2. "overwrite" every character with the shadow variable, using the TYPE(CHAR) formatting. So if you want to display a text in blue and make it become ZPLEXCLR (yellow by default), you'd specify "B" in the shadow variable for the field.

[DoubtfulBadger]

I got it working. Doug's answer was, of course, absolutely correct, it's just the user who needs to learn to read.

Here's a sample REXX and PANEL for anyone wishing to experiment. The words Green and Blue should appear (in the appropriate colours, with a yellow slash between) and when you overtype, they turn Red.
REXX:

/* REXX */             
darea   = '@Green/Blue'
dshadow = ' GGGGGYBBBB'
Address ISPEXEC        
"ADDPOP"               
"DISPLAY PANEL(XX)"    
"REMPOP"               

Panel:

)ATTR                                        
   \  AREA(Dynamic) Scroll(On) Usermod(35)   
   G  TYPE(CHAR) COLOR(Green)                
   B  TYPE(CHAR) COLOR(Blue)                 
   Y  TYPE(CHAR) COLOR(Yellow)               
   @  TYPE(Datain)  Color(Red)               
)Body Width(77) Window(72, 12) Expand(//)    
%Command%==>_zcmd/ /                         
\Darea,Dshadow/ /\                           
)End