Overview of the BMS Painter

The BMS Painter is a powerful, flexible tool for designing maps and generating the BMS macros necessary for creating displayable mapset objects. The painter can also generate the corresponding copybooks needed for using these maps from your program, and compile them into executable modules.

It is assumed that you are familiar with BMS fields, maps and mapsets and with the DFHMDF, DFHMDI and DFHMSD macros.

The following terminology is used both in this chapter and by the painter itself:

Field
An area, of a specified number of columns on an entry or display panel, designed to contain a single item of information of specified attributes and properties. Fields are arranged for display on a map. A painter field corresponds to a BMS field and is generated as a DFHMDF macro.
Attributes
Settings for the visible appearance of a field, for example, foreground and background color and highlighting.
Properties
Settings for the behavior and internal representation of a field or a map (for example, picture, justification, validation) or of a mapset (for example, BMS level, language, storage).
Map
An arrangement of fields on a display panel, designed for the entry and display of related items of information. A painter map corresponds to a BMS display map and is generated into the BMS macro file as a DFHMDI macro.
Mapset
A collection of related maps that generally are used for a single transaction. A painter mapset corresponds to a BMS mapset and is generated into the BMS macro file as a DFHMSD macro.