Anybody interested in SPFLite being able to handle PANELS?

Robert
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Anybody interested in SPFLite being able to handle PANELS? Jul 22, 2024 14:35:53 GMT -5

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Post by Robert on Jul 22, 2024 14:35:53 GMT -5

Hi everyone.

I am chatting with George about the idea of SPFLite supporting ISPF style "panels" and panel libraries. One use for this is to create a simple interface to SPFLite for new users, and the other would be the ability to create "data entry applications" in SPFLite that would be instrumented with ThinBasic macros.

This would be an interesting feature, and possibly be quite useful to the user community. BUT it would be a lot of work, and since George has often threatened to retire, and basically I am already retired, there would have to be some real interest by YOU ALL.

SO ... anybody think think this would be a good idea? You really need to put in your two ¢ as to what you think of this, what features you might likely use, etc. If you have any experience writing ISPF panels, you are the kind of person we are interested in hearing from.

R

Stefan
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Anybody interested in SPFLite being able to handle PANELS? Jul 23, 2024 5:48:32 GMT -5

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Post by Stefan on Jul 23, 2024 5:48:32 GMT -5

I did a lot of work with panel/skeleton/tables/etc and productivity app development at IBM in the 70s and 80s, both on the original ISPF and later on ISPF/PDF.

SPFLite operates with essentially just two display panels - one for FM and one for everything else.
The only difference between the two is the top few lines.
The remainder of both screens is a programmatically populated area, consisting of a short data entry column for line commands/numbers followed by a line area.
SPFLite is PC based, so the concept of entry/no-entry fields is easily managed by allowing where you can type and where you can not type.
By contrast ISPF is 3270 ATTN event-based, relied on a relatively dumb control unit, and field attributes and positioning were awkward to program directly.

IBM's initial product called ISPF (Interactive Structured Programming Facility, I think!) consisted of a "display component" specifically designed for 3270s to support the initial 7-or-so Options of Browse, Edit, Utilities, etc.

Given the complexity of 3270 programming and a user population who wanted to develop bespoke productivity extensions or even applications, there was a sound commercial incentive to improve/extend ISPF.

So IBM separated the functional aspects of the product into two parts:

- an enhanced 'panel' component, still called ISPF (renamed Interactive System Productivity Facility), and

- the familiar Browse/Edit/Utility, etc part, renamed PDF (Program Development Facility), which used the new ISPF as the 'display component'.

ISPF offered CALL-access (ISPEXEC) to built-in capabilities like 3270 Display Mgmt, Table Mgmt, File Tailoring, Library Mgmt, Variable pool Mgmt, etc.

All PDF capabilities could similarly be acessed via ISREDIT

This new structure greatly simplified development of bespoke applications, an attractive idea given the 3270 platform.

So am I interested in SPFLite handling of Panels?

No. I'm sure it could be done, but I see no return on the significant investment.

Most SPFLite users hail from the MVS/z-Series environment.

Even if the new 'display layer' were as comprehensive as ISPF, it would also need to be an 'ISPF clone' so current and ex-mainframe users can immediately feel familiar with it.

All that said, I do have some home-written Utility programs that generate reports.

And I do present those reports via SPFLITE because the capabilities of AUTO highlighting combined with IMACRO highliting makes them much easier to read.

The reports even use 2-byte "attribute" chars that inform the IMACRO high-lighting. (yes, I am that sad!)

So I am (kind of) using SPFLite as a presentation layer.

Last Edit: Jul 23, 2024 5:57:03 GMT -5 by Stefan

Robert
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Anybody interested in SPFLite being able to handle PANELS? Jul 23, 2024 11:23:10 GMT -5

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Post by Robert on Jul 23, 2024 11:23:10 GMT -5

Yes, that reminds me that IBM (or was it Microsoft) had a thing called Presentation Manager, which (I THINK) handled visual displays somehow like ISPF did (and my memory is REALLY weak on this point.

As for the ISPF vs. old SPF panels, I do really believe they were very similar. I am not so sure ex-IBM'ers really need a real ISPF "clone". Prior to SPFLite, there were other clones, like Command Technology SPF and Tritus SPF. They both had a dialog subsystem, even though the layout and features were different. I believe as long as the mechanics of a dialog system generally worked like IBM SPF did, people would "pick up" on how it worked: You type a one-character option code to the right of a ===> prompt, and press Enter to select a feature, and press F3 to get out/cancel whatever thing you're doing. That much I think is feasible. A true "clone" of ISPF would have to reproduce thousands of panel definitions, and SPFLite doesn't have all the functionality. Plus, there are things ISPF did that we don't, and don't need to. Like, DSLIST and catalog management, and other system utilities like SDSF, etc. etc. that interfaced with Zos.

There ARE aspects of ISPF that could be adapted to a true panel format, like much of the Global Options GUI, but users are already adapted to how things are done now, so, unless people wanted to create new panels of their own, this probably wouldn't be of huge interest, I admit. That's why I posted this outreach, to gauge interest.

R