allegro : Data Entry and Editing
`Input Forms`
This tells you all you need to know about editing and inputting of records.

Editing
The currently displayed record is in need of editing - what do you do? There are several functions at your disposal. As soon as any change has been made on the record, the display field background takes on a yellowish tinge, after saving the record by the [SaveRec] button, it turns greenish again. More about the background colors and what they tell is under `Online-Offline`.

a) Normal Editing
	Select a field (list box on the left) - Enter - Do the editing - Enter
The list box on the left-hand side displays the fields of the current record, with longer fields truncated. Press F5 to view the complete internal record in the display record.
Select a field you want to edit in the listbox, then [Enter] - the entire field appears in the write field underneath the display. 
Do whatever needs doing, then [Enter] to confirm the editing. Both list box and display will then reflect the changes.
If you don't see the tagged data fields in the list box, press [Record] or Alt+r.

b) Forms-based editing   [more about this see below]
Press the Button [InputForms] (bottom line). The first of several forms is opened, and you see which of the fields it covers are already filled. 
If you correct something here: press [Enter] for every field separately! TAB will only move the cursor to the next field, unlike with other Windows-typical input forms. 
This is for two reasons: 1. Safeguard against mistakes (long fields!), 2. to perform field validation right after entering the field content. There are built-in checks, like for "comma space" in personal names, and there's the possibility of user-defined validations.

c) Delete a field
Select it, then press the[Del] key on the keyboard.
Tip: The field does not vanish without trace: Use Alt+r (= Button [Reserve]) to get the reserve store list, where you will see the deleted fields. Select, Alt+k, Alt+r  to re-activate it.

d) Copy individual fields
Select a field, then Alt+k. It will be copied to the reserve store. 
As soon as you need it (in any record): Alt+r  -  select the field  -  Alt+k  -  Alt+r.

Enter a new record
Press the [NewRec] button or F9. Two options are presented:

a)Copy current record
Look for a suitable record first, i.e. one that has a few fields you can use for your new record.
Then copy it and make the necessary changes.

b) Enter a new one
The prompt list appears in the listbox. It consists of the names of fields you probably need to input for your new record. Choose a starting point in this Liste (there can be several for different record types), then [Enter]. The prompting begins: the bar in the listbox jumps to the next line every time you enter something and thus indicates to which field your next input will go. 
[Schema] displays the complete list of possible fields; use this if you need to enter a field that did not occur in the prompt list
Use [Record] at any time to get the tagged field list in the listbox. Choose a field for editing, press Enter, do the editing, press [Enter] again.
Use [SaveRec] to submit the record to the database - only now the various entries will be inserted into the indexes. Use "Deactivate" (in the top menu) to erase a new record before saving. 
At the lower right, the button [Offline Source] displays the list of new and corrected (!) records. You find all records there that have been "touched" during the session.

Use Forms
For new input and for editing you can switch to [Forms] at any time. In the forms window popping up, choose the appropriate form. The fields already in use can now be edited and empty fields can be filled. 
	Very important: Forms always work in connection with the current record, i.e. everything entered will go to the corrent record. Choosing another form does not mean that you enter another record!!!
	Even more important: press [Enter] for every field entered or changed - otherwise nothing will happen with your input. Use [Esc] to close the forms window.
`More about forms`.

Enter more than one field at a time
This is useful with cut-and-paste. Copy fields from the display (after F5) or from any other window that shows a tagged display. Then: place the cursor into the write field, Strg+v,  [Enter]. Every field has to begin on a new line and with the '#' character.

For Administrators
How to design an input system with the  FLEX macro concept.

You need three things:

1. One or more help files with Flex-Flips
   Beispiel zum Anpassen: `input.rtf` 
   This shows, in the flip lines, how forms are activated

2. A form file with up to 80 input forms
   Example: cat.frm 
   (cat = Data base name)
   Every form has to have a headline in [...].
   Every form can have up to 14 fields.

3. A call of an input help file  (for example`INPUT.RTF`)
   This can always be done with "h input" iin the write field. 
   But there are more comfortable ways:
   In any RTF help file, you just have to have a flip 
   activating the command
   h input
   Or: set one of the #uX variable, e.g.
   #uX0h input
   then, input.rtf is called by Alt+0.
   To do this, just enter:  0 h input
   in the write field, this produces #uX0h input 
   which will be preserved for later sessions.

The most comfortable way to edit INPUT.RTF is the WordPad program.
But the display field itself can be use, too! Load the file by  h input.rtf  instead of  h input, then the flip commands become visible and can be edited. 
Provided you know RTF, any text editor lile the X editor may also be used. Die  FLEX command lines are at the end of the file and look like this:

\par ?Normal (Buch)=x if diff put\new\form B\form 2\yesno Speichern? (Nein=weiter bearbeiten, Abbruch=verwerfen)\if c erase\input 1\if y put

The sequence "\par " is an RTF command and means "New paragraph". It is written automatically by Wordpad or WinWord (which is not recommended).

?INPUT.RTF=h input
?Eingabe-Formulare=h input
?Online-Offline=h off
?More about forms=h form
?input.rtf=h input.rtf