UIM
Thad Rizzi
in the process of putting together a report package for data on my AS400 and
want to create a nice user interface for it. It will be written in ILE RPG
which BTW I am still picking up. I have been working with basic display
files I have built with DDS but now I have came across the User Interface
Manager. I was wondering if anyone out there has worked with this and what
they think. Is it easy maintain? Efficient? Any pros and cons would be
helpful.
Thanks,
Thad Rizzi
John B.
(maybe 3 or 4 years ago now), I discovered you couldn't use external file
field descriptions.
I do use it for menus, it's easy, easy to add help, automatically scrolls
'and' you can have pull down menus kind-of-like pc's and macs.
John Rusling
Systems Coordinator
Thad Rizzi <tha...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:Ewlh5.29901$ga2.8...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
Tim
system like utilities. It is not particularly well suited for most
applications.
1. There is nothing like screen design aid. You must actually have a program
working before you can even see what the display looks like.
2. Very poor UIM compiler messages
3. It has a slower response time than a similar application written with a
display file
4. It requires numerous external program calls (last time I checked the UIM
api's were not bindable but this might have changed)
5. List processing is especially non-straight forward
6. Virtually no control of screen layout.
Dieter Meier
in my opinion - the main disadvantage using UIM is that you cannot
reference UIM-fields to fields in DB2/400 - in other words - you had to
hardcode the field-length etc.
Dieter
Thad Rizzi schrieb:
Thomas
For basic pros and cons, see the Application Display Programming guide (
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com:80/cgi-bin/bookmgr/BOOKS/QB3AUK00/3.1.3 ),
topic 3.1.3 What to Consider before Using UIM Instead of Data
Description Specifications (DDS).
Keep in mind that UIM is the "User Interface Manager". It is not a
general-purpose application environment. It's better to compare the UIM
tag language to HTML than RPG. The UIM APIs provide ways to control what
gets displayed and how it looks and what functions are executed under
what conditions, but the "functions" wouldn't normally be created in
UIM; the functions would normally be regular RPG or CL or COBOL
programs (or whatever).
Personally, I don't put a lot of worry into something like whether
external field definitions can be accessed or not. I believe that proper
database design would handle that easily enough by sticking to standard
domains, etc. But there's usually no reason to associate that issue with
UIM. It just isn't appropriate in most cases.
Use UIM maybe to define an interface to an application control file, but
forget maintaining the application database. Use it maybe to print a set
of basic statistics but forget trying to calculate a set of statistical
functions over the database. In other words, use it where it fits.
Tom Liotta
In article <Ewlh5.29901$ga2.8...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
"Thad Rizzi" <tha...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> This is a pretty broad question but any comments will be appreciated.
I am
> in the process of putting together a report package for data on my
AS400 and
> want to create a nice user interface for it. It will be written in
ILE RPG
> which BTW I am still picking up. I have been working with basic
display
> files I have built with DDS but now I have came across the User
Interface
> Manager. I was wondering if anyone out there has worked with this and
what
> they think. Is it easy maintain? Efficient? Any pros and cons would
be
> helpful.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Thad Rizzi
>
>
--
Tom Liotta
AS/400 systems programmer
And for you automated email spammers out there:
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Before you buy.
Oscar
My 2? worth.
UIM is great for making the help for your application look just like OS/400. You
can define the help for common fields in one place and reference it. It's cursor
sensitive with no RPG changes (Additional DDS work however) The windows pop up
the correct size, the F14 print works, etc, etc. The tag language is pretty
straightforward once you get the hang of it. I think I'm learning HTML quicker
because I know some of the tag language of UIM.
As far as using it to create display panels, good luck. I've never personally
tried it, however several of my colleagues have, and I've read in the trade
mags, newsgroups etc that it can be quite a challenge. Until we go GUI, I'll
stick to display file DDS.
HTH
Oscar
Paul Nicolay
Regarding incorporating UIM Help in your application, I used the API (don't
have the name with me) to display the UIM panels (with the DDS keywords you
know on which form/field you're). This way, you don't need to describe it
in the DSPF and it is more flexible.
I did however hear from a company that did everything in UIM (together with
C) as it was how IBM was working. I never tried it myself as DDS is
sufficient for me, and I don't see any reason so far to switch.
Kind regards,
Paul
------------------------------------
Oscar wrote in message <398784F6...@home.xxx.com>...
Thad,
My 2? worth.
UIM is great for making the help for your application look just like OS/400.
You
can define the help for common fields in one place and reference it. It's
cursor
sensitive with no RPG changes (Additional DDS work however) The windows pop
up
the correct size, the F14 print works, etc, etc. The tag language is pretty
straightforward once you get the hang of it. I think I'm learning HTML
quicker
because I know some of the tag language of UIM.
As far as using it to create display panels, good luck. I've never
personally
tried it, however several of my colleagues have, and I've read in the trade
mags, newsgroups etc that it can be quite a challenge. Until we go GUI, I'll
stick to display file DDS.
HTH
Oscar
The contents of this message express only the sender's opinion.
This message does not necessarily reflect the policy or views of
my employer, Merck & Co., Inc. All responsibility for the statements
made in this Usenet posting resides solely and completely with the
sender.
Thomas
"Tim" <scot...@home.com.xyz> wrote:
>
> 1. There is nothing like screen design aid. You must actually have a
program
> working before you can even see what the display looks like.
Although this is strictly true, it doesn't tell the whole story. I have
a small CLP with three DCLs and three commands (UIM API calls -- open
display application, display panel and close application) that can show
essentially any UIM panel group, including IBM-supplied. A few
additional commands are for MONMSG, etc. With UIM, I don't even have to
recompile for a different panel group, just send in a new *pnlgrp name
as a parm.
Granted, such niceties as dialog variables and lists aren't populated;
but I still get a reasonable feel for the appearance of the final
result.
Of course, it isn't very necessary since the UIM appearance is so
standardized; but it's handy.
Tom Liotta
Ken Rokos
pretty much the same as a pgm that News/400 had in an article a
while ago? That one required me to know the internal names of
sections of the help panelgroup, which I couldn't really figure
out. It would be nice to have something that I could jigger to
just point to a command and have it show/retrieve the command's
help.
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Thomas
Not a problem posting it except it wouldn't make a lot of sense unless I
got rid of the command shells I wrap the UIM APIs with and converted
them back to CALLs. If I get some time, I'll work on it. Of course, the
command shells are posted in one of the UIM sections at my
http://zap.to/tl400 site.
Tom Liotta
In article <27069600...@usw-ex0104-031.remarq.com>,
--
Krokkie
across all appliocations
Thad Rizzi wrote in message ...