If you have a great big long bit of text that needs displaying (for example a long filename), but it wont fit into a certain space, the best way is to display the first and last few characters, with this routine :
FUNCTION elipseText$:text$,maxLength%=15
LOCAL pos%,lft%
LOCAL l$,r$,m$
IF LEN(text$)>maxLength%*2
pos%=INSTR(text$,".")
lft%=LEN(text$)-pos%
l$=MID$(text$,0,maxLength%)
r$=MID$(text$,pos%-maxLength%)
m$=MID$(r$,0,LEN(r$)-lft%)
RETURN l$+"..."+m$+MID$(text$,pos%)
ELSE
RETURN text$
ENDIF
ENDFUNCTION
Example :
DEBUG "Elipse text : "+elipseText$("Hellothisfilehasmorethan30charactersandthisfayl.exe")+"\n"