"QuickScreens" Advanced User Interface

• SCREEN.FORWARD, SCREEN.BACK, SAVE.SCREEN, SCREEN.FORWARD.SUB, and SCREEN.BACK.SUB enable use of screen caching history pages on ADDS, Wyse, Esprit terminals and AccuTerm terminal emulation to provide a thicker client. This enables the programmer to return from EXECUTEs and CALLs without using a repaint function or subroutine. History pages in the terminal or PC are used to redisplay the previous page without the need to repaint the screen or save/redisplay the screen. This not only eases programming design, it is much more efficient, using client resources, rather than central computing resources, to handle screen caching and repainting, and especially improves performance over Wide Area Networks (WANs) dramatically. SCREEN.FORWARD/SCREEN.FORWARD.SUB and SCREEN.BACK/SCREEN.BACK.SUB enable this, while SAVE.SCREEN serves as a next-to-last resort when the number of history pages are exceeded, which can happen usually only on Wyse terminals or other terminals which have no history pages at all. You can also set up program logic around this so that your own program re-paint-screen logic kicks in when history pages are exceeded or not supported at all.
• These are thin-client interfaces which easily support small, medium, large, and extra large user configurations, from LANs, to WANs, to Internet-available applications.
• Extended screen sizes on terminals such as ADDS and AccuTerm may be easily utilized using parameters in the BB4GL, without the need for any programming. These can go beyond 132,24 when the device supports it. Verbs and variables provide switching to extended screen mode and back again.
• There is a screen saver which can be used even when true terminals are employed. In terminal mode, it displays what we call "alphabet soup". In AccuTerm mode, it displays the Software Icon for your system, or the BB4GL Icon, if you do not use a Software Icon. When using Purveyor, the Purveyor Icon is shown by default.
• There is a print screen function which will upload the client MultiValue screen, format it with program name, heading, time & date, save it to a file, and print it to the MultiValue spooler.
• A parameter (REMAKE.SCREEN) may be used to govern whether the calling program tries to re-paint the screen using SAVE.SCREEN (which does not preserve screen attributes, like reverse video) or whether it will use some sort of program subroutine.
• If the terminal type does not perform screen paging or the number of history screens has been exceeded, the SAVE.SCREEN and REMAKE.SCREEN logic kicks in and the program can then run its own internal routine. Using AccuTerm's history pages usually provides many more than enough pages, however, and so do many terminals today. Using these devices and/or the SAVE.SCREEN facility can make calling the internal routines completely unnecessary, unless you use them to paint the screen to begin with. (Many simple screens have no paint screen subroutine, in my experience, and QuickScreens adds much to them, also.)
• Even GUI screens which appear in Visual Basic format (AccuTerm GUI) pass only the data used for the screens back and forth, not entire records, keeping network traffic to a minimum, especially important on WANs. This is, of course, true with AccuTerm SUI screens as well.
• Involves both Smart User Interface and Graphical User Interface