Release 10.1A: OpenEdge Development:
Progress 4GL Handbook

Using the Intelligent Edit Control and its shortcuts

The first step in the next part of your sample procedure involves defining another program variable. You won’t do too many of these before you might begin to get tired of typing the words DEFINE VARIABLE and NO-UNDO and so forth over and over again. In fact, you don’t have to do all that typing at all.

You’ve already seen that when you use the Progress Procedure Editor to edit your Progress 4GL code, you are using an intelligent syntax editor that can perform many tasks for you. One of these is syntax completion. Using this feature can save you many keystrokes in your programming, helps to prevent typographical errors, and helps to impose a standard form to your code.

To define a new INTEGER variable for your procedure:

Position the cursor to the beginning of the line where you want the definition to go, following the variable definition you have already, then enter the letters DVI, or DVIN, which stand for Define Variable INteger.
Press the SPACE BAR. The following code appears:



The text DEFINE VARIABLE AS INTEGER NO-UNDO is inserted for you, and the cursor is placed right where you need it so you can enter the variable name.

Type iDays as the variable name. You’ll use this variable later.

Here are the abbreviations for other data types that you’ve learned:

DVI — INTEGER
DVC — CHARACTER
DVDE — DECIMAL
DVDT — DATE
DVH — HANDLE
DVL — LOGICAL

To see all the abbreviations (also called aliases) and other editing options available to you, select Options Editing Options from the Procedure Editor menu. The Editing Options dialog box appears:

Among other things, this dialog box specifies the following default settings:

The syntax expansion that turns DVI into DEFINE VARIABLE AS INTEGER NO-UNDO is turned on (the Syntax expansion toggle box).
Lines of your program are indented based on the Editor’s understanding of the statements you’re entering (the Indent style selection).
Tabs are set to 4-character intervals (the Tabs fill-in field).

To see a list of all the aliases (also called shortcuts) that are defined, click the Alias button. The Alias Editor dialog box appears:

In this dialog box you see all the aliases for the DEFINE VARIABLE statement, along with a number of other useful ones, including one that automatically respells the (apparently) common typographical error DIPSLAY as DISPLAY. Aliases can be further abbreviated to any unique substring of the alias, which is why DVI works as well as DVIN. Note that you can also define new aliases of your own. They are stored in a file called p4gl.als.

To peruse another set of options that you can customize, click OK to return to the main Editing Options dialog box, then click the Options button. The Progress 4GL Options dialog box appears:

This dialog box includes, among other options, the automatic uppercasing of keywords that you’ve seen in action. If this isn’t your preference, you can turn it off.

To customize which keywords you want colored and what colors to use, click OK to return to the Editing Options dialog box, then click the Color Coding button. The Color Coding Setup dialog box appears:

If you click the Help button on any of these dialog boxes, you can see detailed information on all the options available to you.