Logon help panel csect information

The help panel CSECT is similar to the primary logon panel CSECT, but the size of the header is smaller. The following DSECT maps the start of the help panel CSECT.

HELPPAN  DSECT
HPANID    DS     CL8                   Acronym of this csect
HPANDATE  DS     CL8                   Date of assembly
HPANTIME  DS     CL8                   Time of assembly
HPANLEN   DS     AL2                   Length of this csect
HPANVERS  DS     AL2                   Version of this panel
HPANHEAD  DS     AL2                   Offset to header offset array
HPANINST  DS     AL2                   Offset to first installation - *
                                       defined field

Following the start information, the logon help panel csect header contains an array of offsets to the 3270 data stream instructions. The offsets are contained in halfword addresses. The size of the header is 12 bytes and consists of:

Start of Help Text Offset: This is the offset to the start of the help text for the field for which help text is requested.
Length of Help Text: This is the length of the help text associated with the field.
Four Reserved Halfwords: The next 4 halfwords are reserved.

The headers pointing to help text for IBM-defined fields have the same order as the headers defining the logon panel csects. The end header flag is 12 bytes of X'FF' instead of 16 bytes as in the logon panel csect.

If the user requests help text for a field and the corresponding help text header entry is 0, no help text is displayed. A message is also displayed on the logon panel.

The body of the help panel csect contains the 3270 data stream instructions necessary to display the help text for a selected field. The help text fields can be in any order as long as the header entries are in the correct order.