Columns

'Tips for developers working within the Sysgem Enterprise Manager (SEM) environment'.

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Understanding the "Columns" definition page in the SEM Development Interface

Edit the Columns Page

This section describes the features available to the SEM Developer for editing the 'columns' page in a display contained in a SEM library.

The columns page determines the layout of the Display Window after it has been started and after it has been connected to a SEM Agent. Data from the Agent is displayed in the columns of the Display Window using a unique, two-alphabetic, character code for each column.

Add a New Field

To add a new field press the button and select the number of new fields to add, and whether they should be added to the top or the bottom of the list. Their position in the list determines their position (from left to right) that the columns will appear in the display window.

Enter the Characteristics of the Column

The following fields determine the characteristics of the columns:

• Column Title: The text that will appear at the top of each column of the display

• Code: A unique two-alphabetical character code used by scripts to identify each column of the window

• Tag: This is retained for historical reasons and should not be used. It will eventually be removed from the product

• Align: Determines whether text displayed in the column should be aligned to the left, right or centre of the column

• Sort: When the user clicks on the column title the rows in the display are sorted by that column. The sort order is determined by this field

• Default Checkbox: Whether the column is displayed by default when the window is first shown. Subsequently, the user has the opportunity to remove a column, or reorder the columns, or reset them back to their default setting

• Unique Checkbox: When a row in the display has been selected and a menu option performed, the screen is repainted and any rows that were selected before the window was repainted are re-selected after the repaint. The "Unique Checkbox" is used to identify which rows were selected by reference to their content using the combination of Unique fields

• Display As: The normal representation of a column of data is as "Text", but alternative bar chart representations are available for numerical values to be expressed as a percentage of the total. The type of representation and 'total' value in the range is selected in this field

• Preserve Checkbox: If the column has been added as a local customization, then setting this checkbox will ensure that the customization is preserved after a new version of the module has been imported