User Interface Manager (UIM) APIs

The user interface manager (UIM) APIs handle various aspects of the user interface, allowing your applications to display help, display a command line window, convert date and time formats, control keyboard buffering, display screens and pop-up windows, and to build screens.

These APIs allow an application developer to manipulate the user interface. These APIs are used in combination with variables, lists, and panel definitions in a panel group object. For more information on creating panel group objects, see the Application Display Programming book.

The UIM APIs perform a wide variety of tasks in the following categories:

• Application APIs
  
  
• Display APIs
  
  
• List APIs
  
  
• Print APIs
  
  
• Variable pool APIs
  
  

The UIM exit programs are:

• Action List Option or Pull-Down Field Choice adds, updates, or removes a list entry for the application when the action list option or pull-down choice action is a command string.
• Application Formatted Data updates the data formatted by the application every time a panel is displayed, and returns control to the UIM through a normal return.
• CALL Program for a Function Key is assigned to a function key to process requests that are specific to the application.
• CALL Program for a Menu Item is assigned to a menu item to process requests that are specific to the application.
• CALL Program for an Action List Option and Pull-Down Field Choice can specify the CALL dialog command on the ENTER, EXTENTER, PROMPT, and EXTPROMPT attributes of the list action (LISTACT) tag.
• Conditioning Panel Items may be called during condition evaluation for conditions specified on the EXPR attribute of the COND tag and the LINKWHEN and UNLESSn attributes of the LINK tag.
• Cursor-Sensitive Prompt can be specified on the PROMPT attribute of the data item (DATAI), data item extender (DATAIX), and list column (LISTCOL) tags. This attribute specifies the name of a dialog variable identifying the program to call.
• General Panel Checking may be specified on the USREXIT attribute of the panel definition (PANEL) tag. This attribute specifies the name of a dialog variable identifying the program to call.
• Incomplete List allows an application to display part of a list without having to build the entire list.
• Text Area Data can update the data in a text area every time a panel is displayed and returns control to the UIM through a normal return.

For additional information, see:

• Using the User Interface Manager APIs
• Using the User Interface Manager exit programs