Pathmaker Programming Guide

Screen Painter Components
Using the Screen Painter
6–2 067868 Tandem Computers Incorporated
Screen Elements A screen element can be a data or point field, a decoration, or a pseudofield. Each of
these screen elements can have a starting location, length, or video attributes.
These listed screen element attributes are stored in the Pathmaker project catalog.
Each screen element is described in the following pages.
Data Fields Data fields are screen elements used to display and accept the data
that you enter. Every data field is associated with a reference object
in the requester context or an elementary field within a reference
object. A data field can become segmented if it is too long to fit on
one line.
Decorations Decorations are displayable ASCII characters used to enhance the
appearance or meaning of the screen. Decorations do not change
when the end user enters data into the application screen. You can
add decorations by invoking the Screen Painter and typing directly
on the screen from your keyboard.
Two examples of decorations are the screen title and the line of equal
signs (===) at the top and bottom of the application screen. These
decorations are provided for you automatically by the Pathmaker
product, but you can remove or change them if you want.
Point Fields A point field is an invisible screen element used with a function key
and either the pseudofield @CURSOR-POSITION or the pseudofield
@CURSOR-FIELD to start some operation in the application.
Although invisible in the generated application, point fields are
dimly highlighted within the Screen Painter so that you can locate the
existing ones.
Pseudofields A pseudofield is a Pathmaker defined screen element used to display
or send values that do not have DDL definitions. A pseudofield
becomes part of the requester’s context when you use it in your
requester.
Only a subset of the Pathmaker pseudofields can be displayed on an
application screen. You add these pseudofields to the requester
context by defining them in the Screen Painter. The Pathmaker
pseudofields that you can define through the Screen Painter are:
@CURRENT-PAGE contains the page number in the current
requester’s screen.
@DATE contains the current date, according to the system clock.
@LOGICAL-TERMINAL contains the logical terminal name.
@PAGE-COUNT contains the number of pages in the current
requester’s screen.
@TIME contains the current time, according to the system clock.