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Main
Menu Selections The Alloy Blending System is normally activated via a Windows shortcut/icon. View Running ABS Under Windows 2000 or Running ABS Under Windows 95/98 for information on creating a shortcut to ABS. If desired, you can use an alternate menu system other than the one supplied with ABS or create an ABSMENU.INI file. This is often done to maintain security and limit users from accessing certain programs, such as the Directory Editor and the ABS Utilities. After ABS is activated, a menu of programs will appear. This primary menu will be referred to as the “Main Menu” throughout this site. Following is an example of the “Main Menu”:  Programs are activated by entering the 1-character letter identifier (A-Z) or clicking on the button located to the left of the description. For example, to access the ABS Utilities, enter “U” or click on the button to the left of “ABS Utilities”. Within each program, pressing <F1> (or clicking on “F1-Help” or “About”) will display a Windows help file. To exit the Alloy Blending System, press “Z” or click on the button located to the left of “Exit ABS Menu”. If a program cannot be selected or activated, either your company has not licensed it or you are not “privileged” to access it. System privileges are determined by your ABS user number. Refer to User Number Restrictions and Privileges below or contact your Systems Administrator for more information. NOTE: Your ABS user number and privileges are established by your Systems Administrator, not by Keystone Systems.
Creating
the ABS.INI File The first program that must be activated after installing the software is “ABSINI.EXE” to create an ABS.INI file. If you try to activate any other program before creating this file, the error message “ABS Set-up Error - Need ABS.INI file to proceed” will be displayed. To create the ABS.INI file via the ABS Utilities, select “U” from the main menu. A dialog of choices will appear — select “G” (View/Set ABS.INI Values):
The following dialog will appear:  Click on “Yes”, and the following dialog will be displayed:  The values shown in each set of brackets are the system defaults. If any of these defaults do not match your particular system configuration, they must be changed in order for ABS to properly function. You can obtain help by clicking “About” on the toolbar at the top of the screen. The Home Drive Designation is used to indicate the hard drive identifier (C, D, E, etc.) where you have created the folder “\ABS\DATA” for your ABS data files (this would be K in a network environment, based on our suggested configuration). This folder should be backed up often (at least once a week). The Home Drive of ABS Help Files is used to indicate the hard drive identifier (C, D, E, etc.) where you have created the folder “\ABS\HELP” for your ABS help files and on-line manuals (this would be K in a network environment, based on our suggested configuration). The User Number entered (0-99) controls the restrictions/privileges for each ABS user. When you see the symbol P shown in the ABS User’s Reference Guide, it indicates “privileged” information (i.e., cost information on various Inventory Reports). The higher the user number, the less “privileged” the user is. Following is a list of each user number and the associated restrictions/privileges:
The User Name entered is generally the user’s first and last names. The Operating System should normally be left as the default “WIN” for Windows users. Setting the Home Drive for Mars Logs is only necessary if you have purchased the Management Reporting System (MARS). This field is used to indicate the hard drive identifier (C, D, E, etc.) where you have created the folder “\ABS\LOGS” for your historical MARS data files (this would be K in a network environment, based on our suggested configuration). This folder should be backed up often (at least once a week). Refer to Setting Up the Management Reporting System for more information on setting up MARS. The Date Style is used to indicate the preferred format for displaying and printing dates. There are three different date style formats supported by ABS. The default is “1” for mm/dd/yyyy. The other options are “2” for yyyy/mm/dd, and “3” for dd/mm/yyyy. If desired, the default highlighter background and text colors used in all “highlighted” ABS dialogs can be changed. The default colors (cyan and black) are shown in the “Highlight” text box directly to the right of the highlighter color choice buttons. To change the background highlighter color, click Select Highlighter Background Color. A Windows color chart dialog will appear. Select the desired color and click “OK”. The “Highlight” text box will then show the color selected. To change the highlighter text color, click Select Highlighter Text Color and follow the above instructions. By default, pressing the tab key within any ABS program moves to the next tab control field (normally “OK”, then “Cancel”, then “Page Number”, if applicable). You can change this functionality by setting the option Wants Tab to move to Next Column in grid to YES. This will enable the highlighter to move to the next column when the tab key is pressed. If this value is set to YES, the user will be required to use the mouse to access other fields in the dialog. After all of the information has been entered, click on “OK” to save the data and return to the ABS main menu. The ABS.INI file will now be created. After creating the ABS.INI file, you should review the User Defined Variables, which are also accessed via the ABS Utilities menu. From the ABS Utilities menu, select “V” to review the User Defined Variables.
Alternative Menu Programs and the
ABSMENU.INI File If desired, you can use an alternate menu system other than the one supplied with ABS or create an ABSMENU.INI file. This is often done to maintain security and limit users from accessing certain programs, such as the Directory Editor and the ABS Utilities. You can also bypass the ABS main menu and create separate Windows icons/shortcuts to run individual ABS programs. Refer to Bypassing the ABS Main Menu for more information. Restricting Access to Individual Programs on the ABS Main Menu The ABSMENU.INI file is an ASCII text file located in the user’s working folder (i.e., \ABS\USER1) and has the following default layout: Line 1 beginning at position 1: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ Line 2 beginning at position 1: YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY The letters A-Z represent the choices from the ABS main menu (i.e., A=Directory Editor, B=Grade Editor, etc.). The “Y” under each letter represents permitting access to the corresponding program. To restrict a user from accessing a program, change the “Y” to an “N” under the corresponding letter. For example, to limit access to the Directory Editor (choice A) and ABS Utilities (choice U), create an ABSMENU.INI file as follows:
Exception: Restricting access to the ABS On-Line Documentation (choice W) will only limit viewing the ABS Systems Administrator’s Guide, NOT the ABS User’s Reference Guide. Restricting Access to Individual ABS Utility Programs You can restrict a user’s access to ABS Utility programs G (View/Set ABS.INI Values) and S (Shell to Command Line) by setting Master Directory Special Option #73 to “YES”. |
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