A-Shell Reference

Reviewed and revised December 2023

tab(-10, AG_STATUSLINES); stslin, visible, textmode {, textmsg}; chr(127);     Tab(-10,x) Syntax Notes

AG_STATUSLINES (34) controls the visibility and font class of the top and bottom status lines, and/or the text appearing on the system status line. The system status line is below the bottom status line and usually reserved for system messages from A-Shell, rather than application messages, but can be updated with this command.

Parameters

stslin

Character code indicating which status line is being impacted.

 

visible

 

textmode

 

The default textmode is 0, but automatically switches to 1 if any GUI controls are created before an explicit AG_STATUSLINES command is issued. The assumption here is that if you are using GUI text or other controls in the window, you would probably want the status line text to also use that mode. Once you issue an AG_STATUSLINES command, the mode stays fixed until another AG_STATUSLINES command changes it.

Note that the number of characters allowed on the status line does not change between modes, even though typically proportional text is more compact. Also, the proportional text is tokenized (similar to the way the OPTIONS=GUI_SPC_IND feature works) so that any text tokens preceded by two or more spaces will be repositioned to start in the same position as it would have in fixed pitch mode.

This does not apply to the system status line, which always uses the proportional font.

Leave the textmode parameter blank when specifying the textmsg parameter (e.g. stslin,visible,,textmsg).

textmsg

A message of up to 160 characters to display on the system status line. The parameter is only recognized if the visible parameter is followed by 2 commas—i.e. omit textmode. The system status line always uses a proportional font, so textmode doesn't apply here. An empty textmsg will clear the system status line.

Response

None

Examples

? TAB(-10,AG_STATUSLINES);"1,0";chr(127);        ! remove top status line

? TAB(-10,AG_STATUSLINES);"2,1";chr(127);        ! display bottom status line

? TAB(-10,AG_STATUSLINES);"1,1,1";chr(127);      ! restore (display) top status line, proportional font

? TAB(-10,AG_STATUSLINES);"3,1,,Boo!";chr(127);  ! Enable system status line, display "Boo!"

? TAB(-10,AG_STATUSLINES);"3,1,,";chr(127);      ! Clear (but leave visible) system status line  

 

Comments

Adding or removing status lines does not affect the size of the main window, but by increasing or decreasing the amount of vertical space left for the text grid, affects the height of the rows and consequently the character height.

The top and bottom status lines were part of the original terminal specifications emulated by ATE and the A-Shell/Windows client, typically used by applications to display auxiliary information. Use the Tab Functions (-1,128) thru (-1,131) to write to them.

The system status line was never part of the terminal specification and is intended for system-level messages from A-Shell itself, typically about low level operations such as file transfers, downloads, auxiliary port printing  or other communications between the server and client. Applications can however write to it via the second syntax of this AG_STATUSLINES command.

Visibility of the status lines may also be set interactively by the user for A-Shell/Windows via the Settings > Status Lines menu (and then optionally saved as part of the standard configuration via the File > Save menu). For ATE, use the Connection Properties Dialog Emulation tab.

See Also

History

2023 August, A-Shell 6.5.1739:  URLs of files being downloaded from the web (via WEBCACHE or explicit http specifications such as image loading) will now appear on the system status line during the download.

2011 April A-Shell 5.1.1214:  Add stslin options to save and restore status line visibility states.

2011 April A-Shell 5.1.1212:  Status line enhancement: The top and bottom status lines can now be displayed using a proportional font.