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Topic starter
I am wondering if anyone has any education materials on writing MEL statements. Vendor support hasn't been helpful and I haven't been able to be sent to the advanced VFE course. Even if someone knows what language is similar would help. I am so use to being able to just write statements but I just can't figure out MEL and there if very little out there for help.
Thank you!
Posted : March 18, 2015 3:51 am
I would suggest looking through this pdf if you haven't gone through it before. It's got a lot of useful information like describing what a Watcher Function is and how it's used. A lot of this information is available already in the help file for CPS/EMR, but I find this to be more easier to search in.
Posted : March 18, 2015 4:10 am
I joined my company two years ago and felt the exact same way. Thing is, at least for me, there is no similar language. I had experience in college with visual basic, some HTML, some java, but that's it. The only way I was able to learn is looking at the code of our practices existing forms. We use all custom forms, so that wasn't an issue. Then I began surfing the forum to look at other folks forms. Basically a lot of trail and error, and even now I would consider myself a basic MEL programmer. The forms that VFE provides as a sample where really great to, remember if you get a piece of code that does a certain thing it more than likely can be scaled anyway you like.
Posted : March 18, 2015 4:12 am
There are two books that are/were available through GE. I think they're the class handouts. "MEL Programming Workshop", and "Building Forms & Templates Student Workbook - 2005 Release".
The "MEL Programming Workshop" book gives you a pretty good introduction to the syntax of MEL, as well as ideas on how to decode various MEL Intrinsic Functions.
"Building Forms..." is less useful in this context, as it relates more to forms than to MEL.
MEL can be coded like structured BASIC. There are some verbs within MEL that I studiously avoid, such as the one that jumps out of loops (I hate that concept).
Then there are the cuties: MEL is internally inconsistent; sometimes it behaves one way, sometimes another - especially in bracket and parenthesis handling. The sort Intrinsic permits only one key value (hint: if you want a multivalue sort, you have to make yourself a temporary key!).
The list of commands and functions are in Centricity Help.
I've been thinking of doing a presentation for October (2015) CHUG entitled "MEL in a Minute (Well, Forty)" Would this be helpful?
Here's the hunk of Mel that I stole that started me out:
{fn bysex(maletext, femaletext)
{
if PATIENT.SEX=="F"
then return femaletext
else return maletext
endif
}}
I've written much more (needlessly) complex functions since this little hunk of code helped me to understand how to create a function. By the way - usrlib.txt is where user defined functions live.
Good Luck!
Posted : March 18, 2015 4:31 am
I would love to attend a MEL class for October 2015 CHUG. If you present it, you will have a lot of attendees. I have both of the books you talk about dnlustig and I have read them front to back more than once over the past 8 years of coding. Thank you.
Posted : March 18, 2015 4:47 am
They need more MEL classes! That would be great.
Posted : March 18, 2015 5:26 am
I would attend that class!!!
Posted : March 18, 2015 5:43 am
Topic starter
Can I ask where you all got these books? Was it during training or given to your practice with the purchase of VFE? We aren't GE direct so I have received very little training and documentation.
Posted : March 18, 2015 5:44 am
The key resource is Creating Clinical Content on the GE site, dated 2012, I don't believe there is an update. The Help file within Centricity is critical. Help icon->Contents Tab->Administrators and management->Use Data symbols->List Symbols alphabetically. The language is 'basically' Basic. It is very limited. There are maddening inconsistencies. Debugging is arduous as there are no debugging tools except copious use of userok(). Despite the problems, it is all doable. Request help, forms from the CHUG group. Learn from the code. Ask questions. We have all been through this.
Posted : March 18, 2015 6:37 am
what exactly are you trying to write? What do you mean by statements?
Posted : March 19, 2015 9:25 am
Take a look at $mdObject the open source project on GitHub. The $mdObject is same for MEL as jQuery for DOM. A lot of MEL function. The $mdObject is for Java/HTML form developers. See Demo.html page for simple usage of the $mdObject.
Posted : March 21, 2015 3:04 pm
How do you run Demo.html ? I logged into a demo version of Centricity 9.8 and opened the html in explorer, doesn't load/run. - Beverly
Posted : March 23, 2015 8:09 am
htabor...
I think I found the books by googling MEL documentation or something like that. It was a few years ago. I may have found them on a GE site.
Posted : March 24, 2015 6:03 am
blackmanb: You need to copy Demo.html and all files from the scripts folder into
C:\Program Files\Centricity Practice Solution\jboss\server\default\deploy\demo.ear\CentricityPracticeWS.war\mdObject\
..\mdObject\demo.html
..\mdObject\script\mdObject.js
..\mdObject\script\*.js
..\mdObject\script\*.css
Create a Quick Text in centricity:
.mdobject
{show_html_form("//localserver/mdObject/Demo.html","mdObject Demo")}
And call it from Text of the new document. (type .mdobject and click enter)
Posted : March 24, 2015 7:17 am
I would also be interested in MEL basics 101. I am relatively new at this also and often go back and use existing MEL to try and build new. I also use the Help, but again a basic training would be very helpful!
Posted : March 24, 2015 12:28 pm
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