Screen generator
A screen generator, also known as a screen painter, screen mapper,[1] or forms generator is a software package (or component thereof) which enables data entry screens to be generated declaratively, by "painting" them on the screen WYSIWYG-style, or through filling-in forms, rather than requiring writing of code to display them manually.[2][3][4][5] 4GLs commonly incorporate a screen generator feature.[6] They are also commonly found bundled with database systems, especially entry-level databases.[7] A screen generator is one aspect of an application generator, which can also include other functions such as report generation and a data dictionary.[8][9] The earliest screen generators were character-based; by the 1990s, GUI support became common, and then support for generating HTML forms as well. Some screen generators work by generating code to display the screen in a high-level language (for example, COBOL); others store the screen definition in a data file or in database tables, and then have a runtime component responsible for actually displaying the form and receiving and validating user input.
Examples
[edit | edit source]Examples of screen generators include:
- IBM Screen Definition Facility II:[10] generates screens for CICS BMS, IMS MFS, ISPF, GDDM and CSP/AD.[11]
- Performix for Informix.[5][12]
- Microsoft Visual Basic[13]
- the forms component of Microsoft Access[7]
- Oracle Developer,[13] in particular its Oracle Forms component
- the QDesign component of PowerHouse
- SystemBuilder/SB+
- the Screen Painter component of SAP's ABAP Workbench[14]
- the FoxView component of FoxPro.[15][16][17] FoxView was originally developed by Luis Castro as a dBASE screen generator named ViewGen; Fox purchased it and bundled it with FoxPro 1.0.[18] Later, Fox replaced Castro's code with their own screen painter code.[19]
- dBASE included a built-in screen generator in dBASE IV onwards;[20][21] in dBASE III and earlier, third party screen generators were available, including the already mentioned ViewGen [18]
- DPS 1100 for UNIVAC 1100 series mainframes.[22][23]
References
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