SCREEN section

The SCREEN section defines the form layout for TUI mode forms.

Syntax

SCREEN
   [ SIZE lines [ BY chars ] ]
   [ TITLE "title" ]
   [ TAG "tag-string" ]
{
  { text | [ item-tag [ | item-tag ] [...] ] }
  [...]
}
[END]
  1. lines is the number of characters the form can display vertically. The default is 24.
  2. chars is the number of characters the form can display horizontally. The default is the maximum number of characters in any line of the screen definition.
  3. title is the title for the top window.
  4. tag-string is a user-defined string.
  5. item-tag and text define form elements in the layout.

Usage

The SCREEN section must be used to design TUI mode screens. For a GUI mode application, use a LAYOUT or STACKED LAYOUT section instead.

The SCREEN section must appear in the sequence described in form file structure.

The SCREEN section is mandatory, unless you use a LAYOUT section.

The END keyword is optional.

The SIZE lines [ BY chars ] clause is supported for backward compatibility. A good practice is to omit this clause, and let the form compiler compute the size of the form, based on the content of the curly brackets.

The TAG attribute can be used to specify a string that will help to identify the form at runtime. For more details about this attribute, see TAG.

Inside the SCREEN section, you can define the position of text labels and form fields in the area delimited by the {} curly brackets.

Between the curly brackets, horizontal lines can be specified with a sequence of dash characters (-----).

Note: Avoid Tab characters (ASCII 9) inside the area delimited by the curly brackets. If used, Tab characters will be replaced by 8 blank spaces by fglform.
You can include graphics characters defined for your terminal between the curly brackets to place rectangles in a screen form. Use \g to start and end graphics mode. For example, \g|\g defines a vertical segment. The following characters can be used to indicate the borders of rectangles:
  • p upper-left corner.
  • q upper-right corner.
  • b left-lower corner.
  • d left-right corner.
  • - (hyphen) to mark horizontal segments.
  • | (pipe) to mark vertical segments.

Example

SCREEN TITLE "Customer info" TAG "regular"
{
  CustId : [f001   ] Name: [f002                ]
  Address: [f003                                ]
           [f003                                ]
  ------------------------------------------------
}
END