Force Command Menu utility.

Usage: FCMENU <datafile>

• datafile - A DISPLAY VARIABLE 80 text file containing menu entry definitions.

Empty lines are ignored. Lines beginning with a # are ignored.

All other lines must have the format:

<key> '|' <title> '|' <command line>

• key - a single character keyboard shortcut for the item
• title - the label to display, should not be longer than 16 characters.
• command - the ForceCommand statement to run in response to item selection.

If key is the hyphone/minus character -, then title and command are ignored, and the item causes a separator to be displayed in the menu.

There can be 100 menu entries, including separators.

If you have SAMS, another instance of FCMENU may be run with a different data file to create nested menus.

• F9 - BACK, exits the current menu.
• . - PERIOD, or > move forward a page
• , - COMMA, or < move back a page

# Load TI Extended Basic cartridge
X|Extended BASIC|FG99 TIXB_G

# create a horizontal bar
-|-|-

# Load an EA5 game
P|Parsec|LOAD TIPI.GAMES.EA5.PARSEC1

On an 80 column display, you should be able to display 40 items per page. A 40 column display will only show 20 items per page.

The config file should not have more than 100 items (this will be enforced in a future build)

Standard 32K systems should get an error if you use ForceCommand executables such as FCMENU in as a command target, or in a script target. Only one process can be in upper memory expansion at a time.

With SAMS, ForceCommand will provide a new set of pages for upper memory expansion, and executables like ForceCommaand's FTP or FCMENU can be safely executed. Upon exit, the previous calling executable will be paged back in and resume control.

Mouse is only supported on F18A 80x30 column mode.

FCM may be set to QUIT in a script to cause FCMENU to exit back to the ForceCommand interactive command line interface when the script returns.

For example, assuming you have a script called TIPI.BAS.DEV

FCM=QUIT
TIPIMAP DSK1. TIPI.BAS.
COLOR 15 1
CD DSK1.

and an FCMENU configuration line that runs TIPI.BAS.DEV:

D|Basic Dev|TIPI.BAS.DEV

Upon selecting D from FCMENU, the effects of the script will stand. The user will be in the DSK1. folder mapped to the TIPI.BAS. directory, and the screen color will be changed.