TUI development guidelines

Text User Interface (TUI) allows you to run an application in text mode. Text mode runs in a terminal instead of a display client. TUI applications can run on text terminal hardware or in a terminal emulator.

While Genero applications are typically run on a Graphical User Interface (GUI), they can also be TUI applications. For example, you might want to create a TUI application in Studio if:

• Your application was originally created in text mode and you want to migrate it to Genero. A typical scenario is migrating from Informix™ 4GL to Genero. Eventually, you might migrate the application to become a GUI application, but you want to ensure a smooth transition by running it as a TUI application first.
• Your hardware does not support a GUI interface, so you need the application to run using a TUI interface.

When the display is set to text mode:

• The FGLGUI environment variable is set to 0, indicating to the DVM that no display client should be used and the application should run in a terminal.
• Form files must be text-based .per files with a SCREEN section instead of a LAYOUT section.
• To debug a program, use the "attach to process" feature.

For details about coding a Genero application to run in TUI mode, see the Genero Business Development Language User Guide.