copy of soft menu button in 50g

[DavidM]

(10-21-2018 08:24 AM)samo50g Wrote:  I understand MENU, CST and I can create variables and use these two features. I also can use TMENU however I do not understand "where" exactly the created variable is located. i can see my variable at the bottom of display after i create it with TMENU, but after changing menus I cannot find it again. is this actually the difference between MENU and TMENU ? if yes, than all is clear.

P.S.: i have discovered that my created variable is in MENU .01 after creation with TMENU. So now I know where it is. is there anything which i should also be aware of? Maybe I can navigate to this variable with use of buttons?

Well, .01 MENU may have worked for you in a specific situation, but it's not always guaranteed to provide you with your TMENU menu. It's actually a bit more complicated; menu 0 has a special meaning, and is simply defined as "the previous menu". The 50g always remembers the previously-displayed menu, so it should always be accessible this way (regardless of whether it is a "user" menu or a "system" menu). It also appears that the page number (fractional part) isn't used if the menu number is 0, so 0.x always appears to bring back whatever page was last selected for the previous menu, regardless of the fractional part specified.

Using 1 as an argument to MENU specifies activating the first CST menu in your current path. Unless the most recent TMENU activation just happens to also be the previous shown menu, I don't know of a way to recall it.

Bear in mind that you could simply create a list with your favorite statistical functions defined and call it anything you like (eg. "FAVSTATMENU"). Then when you want to activate it, simply recall that global variable and execute MENU. The CST variable is useful because that's the default name that's targeted by the CUSTOM function (left-shift MODE), but it's not the only way to save your own custom menus.

I keep a key assignment for the MENU command, as I frequently find it useful to simply input a number and execute MENU to jump directly to that set of commands.

(10-21-2018 01:34 PM)Nigel (UK) Wrote:  

(10-20-2018 02:51 PM)DavidM Wrote:  Generally speaking, the 50g's standard menus are defined in ROM and can't be edited. As such, altering specific menus such as 96 (statistical submenus) or 103 (sums submenu) isn't possible.

....

I am absolutely not an expert on the 50g, but reading this reminded me of something that I had read in the HP-49g+ programming guide. I've looked for it again, and found it in the Development Library section, on page 6-7, under the heading "3.1 Extension Program". This describes how to create a library that can modify various system menus through the use of an "extension program". Three of the statistics menus are amongst those that can be modified in this way.

I've never tried this myself; I'm just mentioning it in case it is useful in the present context.

Nigel (UK)

Yes and no. The Extension Program can definitely be useful, but not for the stated purpose that samo50g mentioned in his first post. The statistical menus mentioned in the AUR aren't the kind that simply show the functions as soft-menus above the F1-F6 keys. Rather, they are the "pop up" variety that can be seen when selecting right-shift 5 (STAT) and the sub-categories of 5 and 6 that are seen in that same STAT list. You can customize those particular items, but not any of the individual soft-menus (such as menu 103 or 96). Likewise, you can customize the APPS list shown when you press that particular key using the same method.

It is certainly possible to create a library that would present a hierarchy of custom menu options, but that is non-trivial and may be beyond what samo50g is looking for at present.

Diving into the other utilities mentioned in this thread will also provide some interesting options.