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The Windowing Interface

Factors Affecting Your Full-Screen Session

You should be aware of the following two factors that affect your full-screen session:

Window and PF Key Priorities

When input is specified in more than one window, the debugger processes windows according to a sequence determined by window priorities. Generally, a window of a higher priority is processed before a window of a lower priority. The debugger sets priorities that cannot be changed. The following list of windows is in order from highest to lowest priority:

  1. Keys

  2. Watch

  3. Termout

  4. Termin

  5. Status

  6. Source

  7. Log

  8. Command

  9. Config

  10. Register

  11. Dump

  12. Print

  13. Watch

PF keys have a lower priority than any of the windows. Consequently, if input is specified in a window and a PF key pressed, the window input is processed first and then the PF key command is processed.

The only exception to these priorities occurs when there is text after the Cdebug: prompt in the Command window and a PF key is pressed while the cursor is inside the Command window. In this case, the text is completely ignored and the PF key is processed. This enables command scrolling in the Command window: you can use the PF19 and PF20 keys to scroll through or recall previously issued commands. (The PF19 and PF20 keys are assigned the window scroll < > up and window scroll < > down commands by default.)

Number of Open Windows

There is a limit to the number of windows that the debugger can display at one time. The limit depends on the type of windows that are being displayed and the display attributes of those windows. To avoid reaching the debugger's display limit, close windows that are no longer necessary. By default, the PF15 key is assigned to the window close < > command.

You must be especially careful with the Print and Dump windows. Directing output to these windows with the > command prefix causes a new window to be opened. It is possible to open a large number of these windows at one time, each of which overlays the previous window. When either the print or dump command is used in conjunction with the on command, it is easy to open a large number of windows.


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