Converting RM/Panels Applications

Converting an existing RM/COBOL program to run in Visual COBOL can be simple or complex, depending on the portability of the syntax and data types used in the program. Generally, the Dialect"RM" Compiler directive is sufficient to allow an RM/COBOL program to compile in Visual COBOL.

See the section Converting RM/COBOL Applications for details about converting the application to run under Visual COBOL.

The additional steps you need to take for applications that include RM/Panels are:

ADISCTRL
The ADISCTRL configuration file controls how the Micro Focus Adis routine handles ACCEPT and DISPLAY statements. It contains a configuration required for applications using RM/Panels syntax.
The default location for this file is %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Micro Focus\Visual COBOL for Visual Studio 2012\etc. If this location is not writable, copy the file to another location, and edit and use that copy in your application.
The first ADISCTRL file in the executable path should be set to the predefined configuration RM-Panels in order for the display and keyboard behaviour to function correctly. This is done by running the adiscf.exe utility while in the directory of the ADISCTRL file you plan to use.
Note: ADISCTRL also contains a general RM2VCOB configuration for modernizing RM/COBOL applications, but it is the RM-Panels configuration that you must use if your application contains RM/Panels syntax.
RMP--RUNTIME
This is a field declared in the rmpanels.ws copybook that specifies the runpan2 library. You need to edit this value in the copybook from your RM/COBOL application and ship it with the other converted files for the application.
RMP--RUNTIME is set to runpan2 in the original RM/COBOL rmpanels.ws copybook. In Visual COBOL, the value needs to identify the library that contains the runpan2 entry point. On Windows, that is runpan2.dll (the .dll extension is required to locate the library file); on UNIX, that is cobrunpan2 (32-bit) or cobrunpan264 (64-bit) (do not include the .so suffix of the library file).