Overview of User Interface Features

ACUCOBOL-GT® is part of the extend® family of Micro Focus solutions.

In addition to the standard display handling included in ANSI-85 COBOL, ACUCOBOL-GT offers a comprehensive set of extensions for programming and managing Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs). With these extensions, an ACUCOBOL-GT developer can add a full-featured, native GUI to an existing program entirely in COBOL. The purpose of these extensions is to:

ACUCOBOL-GT supports the emulation of graphical controls and windows on character-based systems. This emulation allows you to more easily write a single program that will run on both character and graphical systems. ACUCOBOL-GT supports the emulation of floating windows and the following control types: label, entry field, push button, radio button, frame, check box, list box (including infinite capacity list box), and combo box.

You can also use ACUCOBOL-GT's traditional text-oriented mechanisms for creating your user interface, such as the textual forms of the ACCEPT and DISPLAY verbs, and Format 1 of the Screen Section. In addition, you can use the Screen Section extensions to define and process both character-based and graphical user interface screens.

Unless otherwise indicated, the references to Windows in this manual denote the following 32-bit versions of the Windows operating systems: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows NT 4.0 or later, Windows 2000, Windows 2003; and the following 64-bit versions of the Windows operating system: Windows Server 2003 x64, Vista x64. In those instances where it is necessary to make a distinction among the individual versions of those operating systems, we refer to them by their specific version numbers (such as Windows 2000 or Windows NT 4.0).

Generally, ACUCOBOL-GT GUI supports include:

Specifically, ACUCOBOL-GT's GUI programming supports include:

Note: Items marked with an "*" are not supported in text-mode environments

ACUCOBOL-GT run-time supports include: