ACUCOBOL-GT allows you to run programs on a wide variety of host systems. Because of its machine-independent object code, many programmers use ACUCOBOL-GT to write programs that will run under several different host systems. However, it can be challenging to write a program that looks good and functions well under both character-based systems and graphical systems because of the vastly different nature of these systems. This is especially true if you include graphical controls in your programs.
You could take into consideration all of the differences between graphical and character-based systems and design your user interface accordingly. You could develop one interface, one set of source code to handle all situations; you could develop two interfaces, but maintain them in a single set of source code; or you could develop two separate programs altogether (one for graphical systems and one for character-based systems). Because many developers use ACUCOBOL-GT to convert existing character-based programs into graphical programs, these sections adopt the point of view that you are doing such a conversion. However, most of the comments apply to writing new programs as well.