Release notes for SirScan V7.5

This document lists the changes that have been made for SirScan version 7.5. It requires Model 204 version 7.5 or higher.

SirScan is a member of the RKTools product family; see also the release notes for RKTools version 7.5.

The previous version of SirScan was 707, available in March, 2010.

Scan criteria screen (ScanSel/SS)

Layout changes

The screen layout has changed slightly: the Users field is now first. Also, the labels of the field prompts consistently use a colon (:) rather than the more verbose ==>.

Field changes

New scan-line color option

By setting Use Color to Y, the color of the scan lines is based on the entry types. The colors can be changed by using PF6, SetColors which invokes the Set Colors screen.

New QT scan line option

(project M204CMDS - Alan)

New Bookmarks option

When the new Bookmarks feature is set on (value Y), a bookmark line is created in the display on the ScanList page for each successive scan request.

Note: Bookmarks are only active if the Interval (Minutes) field is left blank.

See Bookmark lines below for more details.

Start Time changes

The Start time (HH:MM:SS) field newly accepts periods(.) as separators. As a result, the valid formats for this field are: HH:MM:SS, HH.MM.SS, or HHMMSS.

Max I/O and Max Record changes

The Max I/O's. and Max records fields are changed to recognize, reset, and report the situation where the values entered are greater than the maximum allowable. The maximum allowable values, for the Max I/O's. and Max records fields, can be viewed and/or set using the SirAdmin subsystem (within the SirScan SCLASS settings option).

If the Max I/O's. and/or Max records values entered on the ScanSel screen exceed those recorded in SirAdmin, then the values are automatically reset to the maximum allowable, and an informational message is displayed on the "message line" (second line from the bottom of the screen).

In addition, the size of Max records has increased to 7 digits.

Function key changes

PF4 - Reset Time

Reset the date and time to the selected journal's initialization date and time.

PF5 - Daemon-only Help

Help for free, sdaemon-only, SirScan that is provided with Janus Web.

PF6 - SetColors

This function key navigates to the Set Display Colors screen, which lets you change the color of the journal display lines per entry type.

Set Display Colors screen (SetColors/SC)

This new screen lets you set the colors for the various Entry Types. The screen looks like this:

Scan List screen (ScanList/SL)

Field changes

New bookmarking command

A command in format .BookmarkId navigates directly to that bookmark, for example:

.22

Omitting the BookmarkId in the command (that is, entering just .), navigates to the latest bookmark.

Fix Left/Right command

(project LFTRTLFT - Alan)

Fix ALL command

(project ALLON - Alan)

Screen display changes

Bookmark lines

If the Bookmark option on the ScanSel screen is set to "Y", an additional line is displayed separating each bookmark scan period. The current (active) bookmark is shown in green whilst old bookmarks are shown in red. The bookmark line looks like:

______________________________________________________ BookMark 4: 19:59:37.23 - 19:59:58.90

It shows the bookmark number and the time range for that scan. The bookmarks are sequentially numbered and the message line at the bottom of the screen shows the lasted bookmark id, for example:

--------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Latest Bookmark: 4

Bookmarks are saved for the session. Hence if SirScan is exited and re-entered during the same session, the previous bookmarks are retained and can be re-displayed. The new bookmark IDs will follow on from the last one previously created. This provides an alternative to noting down the time of a scan in cases where the information needs to be re-displayed. Also it is possible to change the Display and Format Entry Types values on this screen and re-display the journal lines for a previous bookmark period.

Function keys

PF5/PF6 - Previous/Next Bookmark (or refresh)

If the Interval (Minutes) field in the ScanSel screen is left blank, then PF5 will navigate to the previous bookmark and PF6 to the next bookmark, or create a new one if already on the last bookmark. Hence the sequence is:

old bookmarks <=PF5|PF6=> latest bookmark <=PF5|PF6=> refresh page (that is, new bookmark).  

The scan listing for the old bookmarks is “frozen”, for example, pressing enter or “bottom” will not add to the listing and only the scan lines for that bookmark are shown.

However the latest bookmark listing can be added to with fresh scans. Bookmarks on this page listing are shown in green. If you return to the latest bookmark, only the lines for that bookmark are shown — any others previously on the listing become old bookmarks that you can use PF5 to display. Note that pressing PF5 from the latest bookmark page will take you to the bookmark one less than the latest bookmark, even if the display has a number of earlier bookmarks that have accumulated on the page.

Note that PF6 can be used to refresh the listing page so it is ready for new journal lines (if already on the latest bookmark). This is equivalent to pressing PF3, setting the Start Time to -0, and then pressing Enter.

PF7/PF8 - cursor sensitive scrolling

The scrolling has been enhanced to scroll based on the position of the cursor when the cursor is in the listing area:

• If F8 is pressed, the page scrolls so the line under the cursor becomes the top line.
• If F7 is pressed, the line under the cursor becomes the bottom line.

In either case, the cursor is reset to the command-line field, so subsequent scrolling is for full pages.