How to...This chapter explains the methods you can use to add host screens to your service interfaces group and how to keep your service interfaces in sync with your host screens.
Before you can create a service interface for a screen-based application, the screens for the application need to be available from your Service Interfaces window. You can add MFS screens for an IMS application from a Revolve project, and you can add BMS screens for CICS applications from any of these locations:
For more information on using the Workflow Capture feature to add BMS screens, see the chapter Capturing Workflows later in this book.
Once the screens have been added to the service interfaces group, you can view, edit, and refresh them.
The Add/Refresh Host Screens wizard enables you to add screens to your service interfaces group, and to refresh changed screens already in the group. BMS sources for your CICS screens can be located in any Net Express project including the current project, a Revolve project, or they can reside in any accessible file folder. MFS screens for your IMS applications must be added from a Revolve project.
When the screens in your application change, it potentially affects service interfaces created from those screens. You can use the Add/Refresh Host Screens wizard to refresh the changed screens in your service interfaces group and automatically validate the service interfaces that use them.
Follow the prompts on the wizard to locate and add appropriate screens and to refresh screens already part of your service interfaces group.
Before you begin creating service interfaces or at some time thereafter, you might want to review the details of a screen outside of the context of the Interface Mapper. This can be useful if you are looking for a specific field to use in your service interface, or if you want to see a rendering of the screen to help you decide whether or not to include it in a service interface. You can do this from the Service Interfaces window.
You can use the Screen Viewer in tandem with the Screen Editor to match up rendered screen fields with their names and attributes.
You can edit the screens listed in your Service Interfaces window to change logical field names, to define fields as input, output, or input/output, define groups of fields, and add or change field values. Any screen edits you make are valid only in the context of the service interfaces you create with the screen. The edits do not directly affect your application.
When you place a screen into a service interfaces group, Net Express automatically assigns each field on the screen a logical name. You'll see this logical name used everywhere the field is referenced in the Screen Viewer, the Screen Editor and the Interface Mapper. The default logical name assigned to each field is the same name as is defined in the screen's source file unless the name is a reserved COBOL word. In that case, “-Reserved” is appended to the name.
Note: Net Express does not modify logical field names for screens added via a Revolve project.
You can change the logical field name to something that more clearly identifies the field. When you use the Interface Mapper to create mappings with screen fields, having an easily recognized logical name for each field can be quite helpful, especially if the screen field names defined in the source file are somewhat cryptic.
As a default, Net Express automatically assigns the direction for each screen field to input/output. You can change the direction of any screen field to be input, output, or input/output.
You can group screen fields into an array of sub-units, which can be helpful when you have several rows that contain the same data, each for a different record. The sub-units can be of various sizes depending on your needs. The fields in a group must be consecutive as listed on the Screen Editor.
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