FACE/FMLI help needed

Jim Gottlieb jimmy at denwa.info.com
Sun Dec 9 09:37:24 AEST 1990


AT&T's attitude of 
"We're a monopoly.  We can't be bothered with customers." 
continues...

I am very impressed with the FMLI menuing system that AT&T developed.
It is the nicest menu system for character terminals that I have seen.

It has many wonderful capabilities.  Unfortunately, many are not
mentioned in the documentation.  Specifically, I need to know how to
make FACE/FMLI recognize a type of file by its name or extension and
act differently based on this.  For example, if the user highlights a
file called payroll.wks and hits <Enter>, I want it to know that a file
ending in .wks is a spreadsheet and invoke the spreadsheet program on
that file.

I have found the files 'allobjs' and 'detect.tabs' under /usr/oasys,
but none of my experimentation has borne fruit.

I also want to know how to pass the currently highlighted file name to
a command that is entered via the Commands (F7) menu.

I have spoken on the phone in recent weeks with one of the developers
of the package.  He was kind enough to track down the documentation on
how to do all of this, but is having trouble getting his supervisor's
permission to send it to me.  I just don't understand this attitude.  I
buy a software package, and they are afraid to tell me how to use it.
Do they think I will somehow use the information to make fraudulent
phone calls?  AT&T drives me crazy sometimes.

Please... if anyone knows how to do the things I'm trying to do with
this package, could you please tell me?  If you work for AT&T I promise
not to tell your supervisor.

Jim Gottlieb
Info Connections
jimmy at denwa.info.com



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