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GETTING STARTED QUICK

After installing the software the first thing to do is try it out. Type MARX QUICK (or MARX QUICKNOV for Novell networks) and a menu should come up. Then select the Utilities option. This will open up another window. You then choose DOS Menu and then Free Space. If everything goes right the menu will run FREE.EXE and then return to the menu. After returning to the menu press ESC a few times and exit back to the command line.

If everything works right then MarxMenu is working. If you get errors then you'll need to fix them before going on. If you get an "Out of environment space" error then you'll have to increase the environment space before continuing.

The MarxMenu disk contains many sample menus for you to start with. Which one to use depends on what your needs are. Typically on a single user system you might start with QUICK menu.

To start with the QUICK menu, copy it to a different name such as MY.MNU as follows:

 COPY QUICK.MNU MY.MNU

If you want more of a self-configuring menu you might try the LEVEL1 menu. This menu requires no programming and lets you set up menus interactively.

On a Novell network you might start with the QUICKNOV menu or translate your existing Novell menus with NOVTRANS. The LOGIN menu requires a lot of customization for your system. I wouldn't start on this menu until your regular menus are written.

In the QUICK and QUICKNOV examples we have defined AddChoice and Task procedures. These procedures are written in MarxMenu so you won't find them in the list of MarxMenu's internal commands. AddChoice commands are used with OnKey Task commands to create selections in the menu.

   AddChoice('Directory Master',1)
   AddChoice('Pick Directory',2)
   AddChoice('Memory Map',3)
   AddChoice('Free Space',4)

   CornerStretchBox ('DOS Menu',38,15)

   OnKey Task(1)
      DM

   OnKey Task(2)
      PD

   OnKey Task(3)
      RamMap
      Pause

   OnKey Task(4)
      Free
      Pause

The numbers in the AddChoice statements correspond to the OnKey Task(n) statements so that Tasks are associated with choices. The CornerStretchBox creates a self-sizing box where the upper left corner position coordinates are specified.

You won't find the commands AddChoice, CornerStretchBox, or Task in the manual. That's because they are procedures defined in Include files. The QUICK and QUICKNOV menus include CUSTOM.INC and WINSUP.INC which allow you to set up various features of the menus. CUSTOM.INC can include either NOVELL.INC, BLOCK.INC, or GRID.INC which change the look and feel of the menus. You might want to experiment with these to see which one you like the best. You'll have to go into these three Include files if you want to change the colors. PLEASE NOTE: If you revise an include file, you will need to recompile your .MNU file with the MARXCOMP compiler. Typing "MARX {menuname}" will not incorporate changes made to any Include files until after you type "MARXCOMP {menuname}".

When you execute a menu after modifying include (INC) files, MarxMenu doesn't automatically recompile the menu the same way it does when you modify the menu file directly. After changing an Include file referenced within a menu, you need to force a recompile by typing MARXCOMP QUICK or you can delete the MRX file to force a recompile.

These menus are designed to get you going quickly. If you want to do weird stuff MarxMenu can do weird stuff, but it takes a little more work. The reason we have so many commands in MarxMenu is to be able to do weird stuff so if you need to do something strange, we probably already have a command to do it.

The example menus on disk (MNU files) show a variety of uses for MarxMenu. They can be used like libraries of routines to cut code from and paste into your current menu. A good way to learn MarxMenu is to print out the example menus and study the code.

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