Form part

A form part is a unit of presentation. It describes the layout and characteristics of a set of fields that are shown to the user at one time.

You do not declare a form as if you were declaring a record or data item. To access a form part, your program must include a use declaration that refers to the related form group.

A form part is of one of two types, text or print:

• A form of type text defines a layout that is displayed in a command window. With one exception, any text form can have both constant fields and variable fields, including variable fields that accept user input. The exception is a help form, which is solely for presenting constant information.

• A form of type print defines a layout that is sent to a printer. Any print form can have both constant and variable fields.

Form properties determine the size and position of the output on a screen or page and specify formatting characteristics of that output.

A given form can be displayed on one or more devices, each of which is an output peripheral or is the operational equivalent of an output peripheral:

• A screen device is a terminal, monitor, or terminal emulator. The output surface is a screen.

• A print device is a file that can be sent to a printer or is the printer itself. The output surface is a page.

Whether of type text or print, a form is further categorized as follows:

• A fixed form has a specific starting row and column in relation to the output surface of the device. You could assign a fixed print form, for example, to start at line 10, column 1 on a page.

• A floating form has no specific starting row or column; instead, the placement of a floating form is at the next unoccupied line in an output surface sub-area that you declare. The declared sub-area is called a floating area.

  You might declare a floating area to be a rectangle that starts at line 10, extends through line 20, and is the maximum width of the output device. If you have a one-line floating form of the same width, you can construct a loop that acts as follows for each of 20 times:

  1. Places data in the floating map

  2. Writes the floating map to the next line in the floating area

  One or more floating areas are declared in the FormGroup part, but only one can accept floating forms for a particular device. If you try to present a floating form in the absence of a floating area, the entire output surface is treated as a floating area.

• A partial form is smaller than the standard size of the output surface for a particular device. You can declare and position partial forms so that multiple forms are displayed at different horizontal positions. Although you can specify the starting and ending columns for a partial form, you cannot display forms that are next to one another.

Additional details are specific to the form type:

• Print forms

• Text forms

Related concepts
Print forms
Text forms

Related reference
FormGroup part in EGL source format
Form part in EGL source format