OK, Alan, here's your "squabble" ;-)

I've worked with View and VPlus (but never HiLi) and have always found two
problems:

1) maintaining coordination between programs and ViewForms can be difficult
when making changes, and it's always irritated me that I can't maintain the
screen attributes in the same source file as the code with which it
interacts.
2) more generally, when using block mode, the code likely must process the
entire screenful of data before committing to any thread of action.

I've also had the pleasure of working with at least two quite similar sets
of character-mode screen drivers, which are not only very easy to code, but
produce _phenominal_ performance on an MPE box due to very tiny transactions
- literally hundreds of users running the same program see NO perceptible
delay, even on a small slow box.

Unfortunately, using character mode greatly reduces your chances of
converting your user interface to web pages, which are essentially block
mode; so much so in fact that I'm considering re-engineering about a hundred
char-mode programs to run VPLUS (or some other blockmode) as an interim
step.  (anybody got a better BLOCKMODE system than VPLUS?)

That said, if anyone (Kent, originally, I think?) wants a set of well-worn
easy-to-code character-mode (not specified in the original question I
think!) screen handling routines, I'll make them available for free, and I
might add that problems 1) and 2) are completely eliminated, and it's MUCH
easier than VPLUS for making dynamically 'pretty' screens.  Introduced in
place of the VPLUS difficulties is this difficult-to-teach caveat re use of
several popular and intuitive mechanisms: "DO NOT use Enter, Insert, Delete,
arrow keys, etc, as the host will receive only a string of characters typed,
which can be _quite_ different than 'what appears on the screen when you hit
submit (Return)'".

Tracy Pierce






> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alan Yeo [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Friday, August 23, 2002 12:32 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Screen Software
>
>
>  In article <[log in to unmask]>, Wirt Atmar
> <[log in to unmask]> writes
> >Kent asks:
> >
> >> Can anyone recommend a SCREEN software for the HP3000.
> >>
> >>  1.  That is faster to code than the VIEW3000.
> >>  2.  Is cheap.(VERY)
> >
> >Although this answer currently falls in the category of
> vaporware, and thus
> >I'm somewhat reluctant to answer on that basis, one solution
> will be the new
> >forms mode of QCTerm.
> >
> <snip>
> > As for ease of programming, Ray's comment about
> >ACCEPT and DISPLAY is pretty close to the mark. All of the
> complexity of
> >VPLUS disappears.
> >
> >Wirt Atmar
> >
>
> At risk of starting a minor squable in a tea cup, I would comment that
>
> 1) VPLUS is very Cheap on the HP3000 (Free)
> 2) I suspect one of the major reasons that the majority of COBOL
> applications on the HP3000 use VPLUS is that its much faster
> and easier
> to develop than character mode applications. With one proviso that you
> have a set of VPLUS handling routines to save coding the individual
> calls into your programs. Most sites developing in COBOL have
> these and
> as given 11/14 these have little or no commercial value I'm sure that
> someone will donate one, in fact I will if anyone needs one.
> 3) If you want to make transactional applications really sing on the
> HP3000 forget character mode (with or without advanced
> telnet) Go Block
> Mode.
>
> Shame its going :-)
>
> Alan
>
>
> --
> Alan Yeo
> [log in to unmask]    Just because you're paranoid
> Phone +44 1684 291710   it doesn't mean someone isn't!.
> Fax   +44 1684 291712
>
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