Duration: 15 minutes
So far, we’ve only seen the simplest of dialogs, but as we continue to learn Micromine we’ll encounter increasingly complex ones. Lesson 4 and onwards will rely extensively on your ability to work with Micromine’s dialogs, so now is a good time to learn about the process of entering parameters.
One of Micromine’s greatest strengths lies in its ability to save dialog settings once you’ve created them, and recall those settings whenever they’re needed in future. A simple analogy is using a form-management utility on your web browser: every time you visit, say, your online banking website, the form manager automatically fills out the form for you, saving you time and effort. Micromine’s forms work in much the same way.
After this lesson you’ll be able to: · Systematically fill out a form;
· Use the various mouse and keyboard shortcuts to accelerate the process;
· Save settings as form sets and recall them whenever needed.
Dialogs and Form Sets
Dialogs
Some Micromine dialogs have over 50 individual controls arranged in numerous groups. The best way to fill out such a complicated dialog is to work through it as if you were reading down the columns of a newspaper: top down, from left to right. In the case of a tabbed dialog, you can extend the analogy to reading the pages of a magazine. Adopting a systematic approach like this ensures that responses are made in the correct order, which is important because other prompts on the dialog may change depending on your earlier choices.
Much of Micromine’s user interface is geared towards maximising productivity whilst minimising effort. To help achieve this, numerous dialog shortcuts are available. We’ve already seen the right-click context menu, which is one such shortcut. Another involves the way you specify file or field names: Whenever Micromine prompts you for a file or field name, double-click it (or press F3) to select it from a pop-up list. You should never type a file or field name, since it’s very easy to mistype a name and produce an error.
Once you’ve chosen a file name, Micromine will endeavour to automatically select all of the required field names, so you may not have to do this yourself. If a numeric field is selected, Micromine will also automatically calculate the minimum and maximum values of that field.
Notes:
An example of a more complex Micromine dialog. To fill out this dialog, start at the top of the left-hand column and work down, then repeat for the right-
hand column. Note – this is only an example; it’s not used in the following exercises.
Double-click it to pick it
In general, if a particular piece of information, such as a file name or a field name, already exists, you should choose it by double-clicking instead of typing.
Some dialog prompts are highlighted in a different colour (usually red). These are compulsory prompts: You must enter a value before proceeding. Other prompts can be left blank if they’re not relevant.
Form Sets
Micromine provides an elegant way to save and re-use the parameters that you’ve entered into a dialog: You save them as a form set, which can be
Notes: A form set represents the saved contents of a dialog.
To save the contents of a dialog as a form set, you generally click the
Forms, Save or Save As button located at the right of the dialog. The exact
layout will vary according to the context of the dialog, but in general Micromine provides these ways to manage form sets:
· Dialogs used for Vizex graphic displays have a combination of Forms,
Save, or Save As buttons depending on how the dialog was opened,
shown on illustrations (a) and (b). Vizex is fully described in Part 2 – Displaying and Manipulating Data.
· Filters, colour sets, and other embedded dialogs (that is, dialogs within dialogs) use a layout consisting of Save and Close, Save As and
Forms buttons, as shown on illustration (c).
· Non-graphical dialogs that perform a calculation have the layout shown on illustration (d), using just a Forms button. These dialogs also use
Run instead of OK, which signifies that they run a data process instead
of contributing to a display.
(a) (b) (c) (d)
· Graphical dialogs that are not associated with Vizex, such as graphs or histograms, have no buttons. Instead, form sets are accessed from the menu (e) or toolbar (f). However, these options only appear where relevant.
(e)
(f)
Once you’ve clicked the appropriate forms button, Micromine will display the
Forms dialog, which gives you the opportunity to save the parameters with
a Title of your choice. The title can be any descriptive text, since all that Micromine needs to internally reference the form set is its Number, which must be unique. The Forms dialog also allows you to recall a previously saved form set, and import or export form sets for sharing with other users.
Notes: For convenience you can also group form sets into folders, which are especially useful for managing complex projects that contain many form sets. Form set folders are introduced in Part 2 – Displaying and Manipulating Data.
Identifying saved form sets
Once you’ve saved a dialog as a form set, the Title of that form set will appear at the top of the dialog itself. If you don’t see the name, you’re
not working with a saved form set!
Micromine automatically manages the form set Number so you’ll rarely need to change it yourself, although you can do so if you want to control the grouping of form sets.
Each Micromine function maintains its own independent list of form sets, so there’s no risk of duplication. For example, more than one function could have a form set Number 1, with the title “Testing”.
Even if you forget to save a dialog as a form set, every Micromine dialog is automatically saved to a ‘default’ form set. Simply re-opening a particular dialog will automatically recall the default set, so your previous settings are always available, even after restarting the computer. As soon as you change a value, however, the previous value will be lost.
In Vizex, default form sets are always marked as Untitled, so you can see at a glance whether or not you’ve saved them.
Exercise 3.1: Explore dialogs and form sets
In this exercise, we’ll display some geochemical sample locations and save the display parameters as a form set.
1. From the main menu, select Display | Vizex | Points.
2. Ensure the Input Data tab is active (highlighted). Double-click the File response, and choose NVG_GCHEM from the file list that appears. 3. Once you’ve chosen the file, note how the coordinate fields below the
file name have automatically been chosen. Micromine always
endeavours to complete as much of the form as it can on your behalf. 4. Click the Points tab to activate it, and then turn on the Show Points
and Use Symbols options.
5. Double-click the small blank square next to the Default symbol prompt and choose the filled triangle ( ) symbol.
6. Click OK at the right of the dialog to display the points.
7. Inspect the Display window pane at the bottom left of the screen. Note how it now contains a single entry called Untitled (NVG_GCHEM.DAT).
Notes:
Assuming you’re happy with how the sample locations are displayed, you can save the settings as a form set.
8. Double-click the Untitled (NVG_GCHEM.DAT) entry in the Display pane, at the bottom left of your screen, to redisplay the Points dialog. 9. Click the Save As button at the right of the dialog.
You can also right-click the Untitled (NVG_GCHEM.DAT) entry and choose
Save Form As from the pop-up menu.
10. Inspect the Save Current Values dialog and note how the form set has automatically been given the Number 1.
11. Type in the Title Soil geochemistry (overwriting the default NVG_GCHEM.DAT title) and click OK. Note how the name Soil geochemistry now appears on the title bar at the top of the dialog. 12. Click OK on the Points dialog and note how the name in the Display
pane has now changed to Soil geochemistry.
You can use the same process to make further changes to the form set: Double-click the form set in the Display pane, make the changes on the dialog, click Save and finally click OK.
If you wanted to re-use those settings, you’d simply click the appropriate form set to select it, and then click Open to load the settings.
Why use form sets?
As a general rule, if you plan to use the settings on a particular dialog more than once, it’s worth saving that dialog as a form set.
Form sets are the main driving force of Micromine. They enable you to create libraries of display layers in Vizex, consistently re-load settings for repetitive tasks without re-entering values, and automate Micromine by writing macros. All of these techniques are covered in subsequent lessons or courses.
Notes: Lesson 3 Summary
The key points of this lesson are:
· Form sets represent the saved contents of Micromine dialogs, and are essential for speed, consistency, and automation of repetitive tasks. · Form sets allow you to automate the entry of settings within Micromine,
much like a form manager on a web browser would do.
· Form sets can be grouped into form set folders in a large project. · There are numerous form shortcuts, such as the right-click menu and
double-click it to pick it.
· Compulsory prompts are highlighted in red; you must provide a value for these before using the form. You can change the colour under Tools |
Options | Colours and Fonts.
To fill out a Micromine dialog:
Work through the settings as if you were reading columns in a newspaper, filling out (at least) the compulsory prompts as you go. To speed up filling out a dialog, most information is available from a list. In other words, don’t type but “double-click it to pick it”.
To save a dialog as a form set:
Click Forms, followed by Save As. To save a Vizex dialog as a form set:
Click the Save As button. To recall a previously saved form set:
Open the relevant dialog, then
Click Forms, then locate the desired form set and click Open. Good Practice
Any process worth doing more than once is worth saving as a form set. For example, if you’re importing text files that have the same format, create a form set containing the import parameters. This will save you re-entering the import parameters every time you need to import data in the same format.
Help Topics
For information on: See:
Form sets Form Sets > ...
Notes: