CA Ramis RMBA to Generate FSM Panels

Products

• Ramis Reporter

Issue/Introduction

Have you ever hesitated to use a CA Ramis FSM panel for an activity because you felt it would take too much time and effort to build?

CA Ramis Menu Based Architecture (RMBA) offers a quick and simple method to build an Formatted Screen Manager (FSM) panel that can then be used in other Ramis activities.

Environment

Release:       7.4

CA Ramis
CA Ramis Reporter

Resolution

 The RMBA SET CAPTURE statement allows us to capture the syntax generated by Quick Reporting, Quick Maintenance, Quick Relate, Record-at-a-time Browsing and User-Supplied Screen activities.

The SET CAPTURE statement may be entered on the command input line of any RMBA menu. The capture facility has three settings.

We can choose to capture and run the syntax by entering SET CAPTURE=ON, or we can choose to capture the syntax without actually executing it by entering SET CAPTURE=ONLY.
To turn off the syntax capture facility, enter SET CAPTURE=OFF.

The captured syntax is temporarily stored in a workspace that is available for editing. To display the captured syntax, either use the TOOLKIT option from the TOP LEVEL MENU followed by the EDIT option from the TOOLKIT MENU followed by the type of SYNTAX, or simply enter the command EDIT * SYNTAX on any RMBA command line. This will display the captured syntax in a SmartEdit workspace with an assigned member name of RMBA_SYNTAX and a source type of REQUEST. We can save the syntax as a member in our RAMSBX library by issuing either the FILE or SAVE command. It is a good idea to save the syntax with a member name other than RMBA_SYNTAX so it will not be overwritten by subsequent RMBA activities.

How do I actually generate the syntax for a format and save it ?

Let's look at an example of generating and saving the syntax to build an FSM format for the sample file SALESDATA.

File SALESDATA is a multiple level Ramis database file, which is defined as shown by the RAMINDEX utility:

To begin this process, we need to enter RMBA by issuing the command RMBA from an interactive Ramis session. Upon entering RMBA, the TOP LEVEL MENU will be displayed. We activate the capture facility by entering SET CAPTURE=ONLY on the command line and pressing enter.

The next step is to select an activity for which RMBA will generate syntax. Since we are trying to capture an FSM format, we will select Maintain Data on the TOP LEVEL MENU, Quick Maintenance on the MAINTAIN DATA menu, and then we will enter the filename SALESDATA on the MAINTAIN DATA FILE NAME MENU.

Upon pressing enter, a status message will be issued stating that the RMBA syntax has been captured. Once the syntax is captured, we can display it, verify the content, and even make changes to tailor the format to our specific needs before saving it.

By entering the command EDIT * SYN, the SmartEdit workspace containing our generated syntax will be displayed.

The generated syntax in our example will contain the FSM syntax necessary to build the format, as well as the DMF syntax used to ADD, LOCATE, UPDATE, DELETE or DISPLAY data. The DMF syntax is included since we originally selected MAINTAIN as our activity from the TOP LEVEL MENU.

By simply editing this workspace, we can make any changes we desire. When the changes are complete, FILE or SAVE the member with a unique member name. The new member will be stored in the RAMSBX library of the first database in the active library list.

To tailor the format to our application needs we may decide to remove the DMF syntax, rename the format, change the colors selected or use a different PFKEYS set. We may also want to change the NORETAIN option on the FORMAT statement to RETAIN. This will ensure the format is saved permanently in the RAMFORMAT file once the syntax has been processed. Detailed information describing the syntax used to create an FSM format can be found in the publication Ramis Formatted Screen Manager (FSM). Several of the options and attributes have been modified in the example below, as indicated by the underlining.

Once we've generated and modified the syntax, we will need to RUN the newly saved SBX request to create the FSM format.
Once the format is created, it can be used in the SOURCE statement of a DMF request or built into an SBX routine.

 

Additional Information

The CA Ramis Version 7.4 set of documentation and publications can be found at CA Ramis Bookshelves and PDFs. 

Refer to these publications for more information on:
RMBA Menu-Based Architecture (RMBA)
FSM    Formatted Screen Manager (FSM)
 SBX   System Building Executive (SBX)