Pathmaker Programming Guide

Designing a Pathmaker Application
Preparing for Pathmaker Application Development
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A Pathmaker application for use on a 3270 type terminal, can be designed to use up to
24 function keys (PF1 through PF24 and PA1 and PA2) on each requester screen.
All of the requesters in one application must designate the same terminal type. If you
are designing an application that will be run on more than one terminal type, create
separate Pathmaker projects for each specified terminal type.
Giving End Users Online Help
The Pathmaker full screen interface has extensive help that is available to application
developers everywhere within the product. If you position the cursor at a Pathmaker
screen title and press F15, you get helpful information about the purpose and use of
the entire screen. You can position the cursor on any data field and press F15 to get
help for that data field. To see a listing of all available functions for each screen, you
can position the cursor by the function key prompts at the bottom of the screen and
press F15.
The Pathmaker product allows application developers to provide the same kind of
help facilities to the end users of Pathmaker applications. The necessary files and
programs for presenting help text are automatically provided with each application
produced with the Pathmaker product. Application developers can create and present
help text for entire screens, for data fields within the screen, and for each function key.
Simulating the End User Interface
At any point after you define a requester, whether or not you have defined the data
fields in DDL, you have a prototype requester that you can simulate. When you have
created a hierarchy of requesters, you can simulate the navigation among those
screens. To do this, you simply enter the name of the topmost requester on the
Pathmaker Main Menu screen and press F8 to select the simulation function. You can
then move through the application’s user interface by using the function keys you
defined for screen navigation.
During simulation, Pathmaker first displays the requester that you entered on the
Pathmaker Main Menu and lets you navigate to other requesters as you wish. During
this process, you can demonstrate the appearance of the completed application, but
you cannot process data.
Simulating the appearance of the application screens and of the navigation among
those screens is an important feature of the Pathmaker product. You can show the
user interface to potential end users early in the development cycle and get their
feedback on the application. Simulation is a good method of verifying the basic
presentation of screens without the cost of creating services and configuring a
Pathway system.
If you decide to simulate the user interface, you can define the simulated screens based
on DDL definitions, or you can use the Screen Painter to paint the prototype screens,
showing decorations that represent the data fields.
Simulation with DDL is a good choice if you are converting an existing application or
writing a new one for an existing database. Even with a new database, you should
define the data fields in DDL before creating any Pathmaker requesters, because