The OS/2 operating system Control Program Guide and Reference is a detailed technical guide and reference for application programmers. It gives reference information and code examples to enable you to write source code using Control Program functions.
Before you begin to use this information, it would be helpful to understand how you can:
How to Use the Contents
When the Contents window first appears, some topics have a plus (+) sign beside them. The plus sign indicates that additional topics are available.
To expand the Contents if you are using a mouse, click on the plus sign. If you are using the keyboard, use the Up or Down Arrow key to highlight the topic, and press the plus (+) key. For example, File System has a plus sign beside it. To see additional topics for that heading, click on the plus sign or highlight that topic and press the plus (+) key.
To view a topic, double-click on the topic (or press the Up or Down Arrow key to highlight the topic, and then press the Enter key).
How to Obtain Additional Information
After you select a topic, the information for that topic appears in a window. Highlighted words or phrases indicate that additional information is available. You will notice that certain words and phrases are highlighted in green letters, or in white letters on a black background. These are called hypertext terms. If you are using a mouse, double-click on the highlighted word. If you are using a keyboard, press the Tab key to move to the highlighted word, and then press the Enter key. Additional information then appears in a window.
How to Use Action Bar Choices
Several choices are available for managing information presented in the OS/2 operating system Control Program Guide and Reference. There are three pull-down menus on the action bar: the Services menu, the Options menu, and the Help menu.
The actions that are selectable from the Services menu operate on the active window currently displayed on the screen. These actions include the following:
Bookmark
When you place a bookmark on a topic, it is added to a list of bookmarks you have previously set. You can view the list, and you can remove one or all bookmarks from the list. If you have not set any bookmarks, the list is empty.
To set a bookmark, do the following:
You can specify a word or phrase to be searched. You can also limit the search to a set of topics by first marking the topics in the Contents list.
To search for a word or phrase in all topics, do the following:
To print the document Contents list, do the following:
You can copy a topic that you are viewing in two ways:
To copy a topic, do the following:
The actions that are selectable from the Options menu allow you to change the way your Contents list is displayed. To expand the Contents and show all levels for all topics, choose Expand all from the Options pull-down. You can also press the Ctrl and * keys together. For information on one of the other choices in the Options pull-down, highlight the choice and press the F1 key.
The actions that are selectable from the Help menu allow you to select different types of help information. You can also press the F1 key for help information about the Information Presentation Facility (IPF).
How to Use the Programming Information
The Control Program Guide and Reference consists of guide and reference information that provides a detailed description of each system function.
Control Program programming information is presented by component, such as Error Management, Exception Management, and File System, for example:
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� + Error Management �
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By clicking on the plus sign beside "File System", you see an alphabetic list of the Control Program functions for the file system. Selecting a function takes you directly into the reference information for that function.
Units of reference information are presented in selectable multiple windows or viewports. A viewport is a Presentation Manager window that can be sized, moved, minimized, maximized, or closed. By selecting a unit (in this case, an entry on the Contents list), you will see two windows displayed:
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The window on the left is the primary window. It contains a list of items that are always available to you. The window on the right is the secondary window. It contains a 'snapshot' of the unit information. For reference units (that is, function descriptions), this window contains the Function Syntax.
All of the information needed to understand a reference unit (or topic) is readily available to you through the primary window. The information is divided into discrete information groups, and only the appropriate information group appears for the topic that you are viewing.
The information groups for a reference unit (that is, a function description) can include the following:
This list may vary. Some topics may be omitted when they do not apply.
Information groups are displayed in separate viewports that are stacked in a third window location that overlaps the secondary window. By selecting an item (information group) in the primary window, the item is displayed in the third window location, as follows:
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By selecting successive items from the primary window, additional windows are displayed on top of the previous windows displayed in the third window location. For example, in a function description, Parameters and Return Values are items listed in the primary window. When selected, they appear one on top of the other in the third window location. Because of this, you may move the first selected (topmost) window to the left before selecting the next item. This allows simultaneous display of two related pieces of information from the "stack" of windows in the third window location, as follows:
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Each window can be individually closed from its system menu. All windows are closed when you close the primary window.
Some secondary windows may have the appearance of a split screen. For example, an illustration may appear in the left half of the window, and scrollable, explanatory information may appear in the right half of the window. Because illustrations may not necessarily fit into the small window size on your screen, you may maximize the secondary window for better readability.