Workstations, display files, and the user interface manager (UIM)
provide support for bidirectional applications.
Workstation support
Workstations that have the ability
to display Arabic and Hebrew character sets also have the ability of right-to-left
cursor movement. Right-to-left cursor movement on input fields can be achieved
in one of the following ways:
- Pressing a special function key available on Hebrew and Arabic keyboards
called the reverse key. This is a toggle function that moves the cursor to
the other side of the field, allows for cursor movement in the opposite direction,
and also changes the language layer from Latin to Hebrew or Arabic and back
again.
- Using the DDS cursor control codes for display files. When the CHECK keyword
is used with a cursor-controlled code, it specifies that the cursor is to
move from right to left. The following parameters are valid cursor control
codes:
- CHECK (RL): Moves the cursor from right to left in specified nonnumeric
input fields or in all nonnumeric input fields on the display.
- CHECK (RLTB): Moves the cursor from right to left between fields.
When using these parameters, consider the following
information:
- Modulus check digit verification is supported, but the check digit is
the byte to the extreme right of the field.
- A field for which right-to-left cursor movement is specified can occupy
more than one line on the display. However, the cursor still moves from the
top of the display to the bottom.
- You cannot use right-to-left cursor movement with user-defined data streams.
Note: If no cursor positioning is specified in the display file or by
the program, the cursor is placed in the input-capable field to the extreme
left of the top line.
Display file support
The
server does not check to make sure that all display files opened to the display
station are capable of right-to-left cursor movement. Therefore, it is the
responsibility of application programmers to ensure that the proper display
files are used.
User interface manager support
The
user interface manager gives the following bidirectional support for creating
online information and panels:
- BIDI= NONE | RTL | LTR
This attribute controls the directional orientation
of the panels in the panel group.
RTL indicates that the panel in the
panel group is bidirectional and should be displayed with a right-to-left
orientation.
LTR indicates that the panel in the panel group is bidirectional
and should be displayed with a left-to-right orientation.
- :RT and :ERT
Reverse-direction-text tags indicate that the enclosed
text has an orientation that is opposite to the orientation of the panel group.
For
a list of UIM tags, see the Application Display Programming PDF.