NET/MASTER Network Control Language (NCL) Programmer's Guide

14 Working With Panels
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This section discusses the service provided by NonStop NET/MASTER Management
Services (MS) called Panel Services. This service enables an NCL process to display
panels: full-screen formatted displays that overlay an entire window. Panels have
two purposes: to present information to users and to obtain information from users
and NCL processes. This section discusses the following topics:
Panel design guidelines
The two components in panel processing—NCL procedures and panel description
files
The structure of a panel description file
Writing panel description files
Panel description file libraries
Displaying information about panel description files
Factors affecting panel description file location
Including comments in a panel description file
Defining field characters in a panel description file
Defining trailer lines in a panel
Displaying panels—synchronous and asynchronous
Obtaining input from a panel
The system variables set by the PANEL verb
Testing a panel from Edit Services
Using panel skipping to navigate in the NonStop NET/MASTER MS panel
hierarchy
Table 14-1 summarizes the verbs discussed in this section: these are verbs that control
when a panel is displayed by an NCL process.
Table 14-1. Verbs Used With Panels
Verb Description
PANEL Displays the specified full-screen panel.
PANELEND Gives up exclusive control of a display window and removes a panel from
display.
Table 14-2 summarizes the panel control statements, all of which are discussed in this
section. Panel control statements are used in a panel description file to determine how
a panel is displayed by an NCL process.