Method for generating display screens for a set of application programs by calling screen management subroutines
First Claim
1. A method for generating display screens for a set of application programs which allows application programmers to write programs without having to code the specific locations on a computer display screen where information and data are to be displayed in fields of various display screens of the set of application programs comprising the steps of:
- providing a series of screen management subroutines callable from an application program in the set of application programs, said subroutines including display screen headings, display field descriptors, display data fields, and read screen input;
defining a screen for at least one of said application programs by inputting from an application program screen specification data indicative of information and data to be displayed including for each field a row number, a column number, a length and a type; and
managing a display screen from one of said application programs by reading said screen specification data, calling said display screen headings and display field descriptors subroutines and calling said display data fields subroutine, and calling said read screen input subroutine to read said screen specification data and display screen headings and display data fields on the display screen and, in response to user input data, to read data fields on the display screen and return the data to the application program.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A method for generating display screens for a set of application programs allows application programmers to write programs without having to code the specific locations on a computer display screen where information and data are to be displayed in fields of various display screens of the set of application programs. A series of screen management subroutines are callable from an application program. A display screen is defined by loading one or more arrays of screen specification data indicative of information and data to be displayed. The display screen may be defined by loading the arrays by an application program using data contained in a screen driver file or alternatively by supplying the data to the arrays by means of data statements. The display screen is managed by calling subroutines to read screen specifications, to display screen headings, to display data fields and to read data fields. In addition, a subroutine is executed once per application program to dimension the arrays by specifying the size of the arrays, the number of elements in an array being the number of data statements defined for the largest screen to be processed by the program plus one.
49 Citations
5 Claims
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1. A method for generating display screens for a set of application programs which allows application programmers to write programs without having to code the specific locations on a computer display screen where information and data are to be displayed in fields of various display screens of the set of application programs comprising the steps of:
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providing a series of screen management subroutines callable from an application program in the set of application programs, said subroutines including display screen headings, display field descriptors, display data fields, and read screen input; defining a screen for at least one of said application programs by inputting from an application program screen specification data indicative of information and data to be displayed including for each field a row number, a column number, a length and a type; and managing a display screen from one of said application programs by reading said screen specification data, calling said display screen headings and display field descriptors subroutines and calling said display data fields subroutine, and calling said read screen input subroutine to read said screen specification data and display screen headings and display data fields on the display screen and, in response to user input data, to read data fields on the display screen and return the data to the application program. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5)
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Specification