Forms Designer

The Forms Designer is a screen painting editor which is used to create screen layouts (forms) consisting of static background text and fields from one or more files described by the Data Dictionary.

Forms may be up to 255 by 255 characters and all standard video attributes (bold, inverse, underline, blink) are supported for both background text and fields; the background may additionally include double width/height text and intersecting boxes.

Full colour support is provided subject to operating system constraints. Fields may be marked to allow input (in a user specified sequence) or set to display-only.

Forms created with the Forms Designer may be used in a number of ways:

With the Genius Client Interrogation or Update modules. Forms may be used to replace the default screen layouts, and for input of runtime parameter values.
With the System Builder. A typical application program will incorporate one or more forms to display and/or accept fields for each file accessed.
With Query. Forms may be used for input of runtime parameter values, and to control the layout of the report. In the latter case, video attributes are not implemented and boxes are approximated.
With the Menu Generator. Forms may be used to replace the default menu screen and also provide help information.
With the Genius Suite programming language, using the Forms Generator or the Forms Interpreter.
The Forms Generator creates routines which may be included in the Genius Suite hand coded programs.
The Forms Interpreter is a routine which can similarly be included in programs, and directly interprets the stored form definition. This can be useful for prototyping, or in cases where dynamic forms are required for tailoring some standard Genius Suite system utilities which use forms to paint the screen, accept input and display help and error messages. These forms are supplied in special libraries, and may be tailored to site specific requirements (e.g. to conform with house style or implement foreign language versions).