Making Menus Work

Now that you have working menus, you must make them available to your users. Following is a list of rules for usage.

• You must create a search drive to the directory where the menu files exist. Search mappings can be created in container, profile, or user login scripts.
• Users must have at least Read and File Scan rights to the directory where the menu files exist.
• NMENU uses temporary files. You must create a permanent drive mapping assignment to a directory where the temporary files will be used.
• Users must have at least Read, File Scan, Write, Create, and Erase rights to the directory where the temporary files will be stored.

You can simplify management of the menu system by keeping all menu files in one place, such as SYS:MENUS. It becomes even easier to manage if the temporary files are kept in one place, such as SYS:MENUS\TEMP.

Setting Up the User Environment

If you are storing users' temporary files in a network directory, place the following commands in the login script:

SET S_FILEDIR=

SET S_FILE=.

For example, if you have created a subdirectory called TEMP under a MENUS directory, you would type

SET S_FILEDIR=Z:\\MENUS\\TEMP\\

SET S_FILE=%STATION

These commands point to the directory where temporary files are stored and create unique files in the temporary directory for each workstation ID number. The trailing backslash on the S_FILEDIR path is required.

NOTE:  If you choose not to use the %STATION identifier variable, you must manually create a file with a maximum length of seven characters. The NMENU program automatically prepends the # symbol to the beginning of the S_FILE filename.

If the user will be using a menu with the logout option, set the S_FILEDIR environment variable to a path on the user's local drive. Set the S_FILE to %STATION.

A copy of the MENU-X.BAT file needs to be in the SYS:LOGIN directory if the NMENU LOGOUT option is going to be used.

EXEC LOGOUT gives the message Batch file not found unless the temporary directory is on a local drive, and MENU_X.BAT is in the LOGIN directory.

Starting NMENU from a Login Script

If you want the menu to execute from within a login script, add the EXIT login script command. For example, to execute the ACCOUNT menu from a user's login script, add the following line to the login script:

EXIT NMENU ACCOUNT