May 1993 Newsletter

Volume 3, No. 3

Highlights of This Issue

Highlights in this Issue

Next Meeting

Our next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, June 16, 1993 from 9:30 to 11:30 am.

Location: Informix Software, 2111 Wilson Blvd., Suite 500, Arlington, VA

Agenda: Presentation of GRAFSMAN and TACTICIAN by Leesa K. Jabara of Soft-tek

Question and answer session.

Discussion - Future Plans for the User Group

The following is a brief overview of the products we will be seeing at the next meeting. Soft-tek is also sponsoring and paying the costs of this newsletter.

GRAFSMAN

Informix-based applications can now be enhanced with brilliant graphics generated directly from within an Informix application. Informix 4GL developers can easily build 2D or 3D graphics into every application with GRAFSMAN. Available in Unix, VMS, DOS and MS-Windows environments, GRAFSMAN is also device independent, allowing the user to utilize a vast array of terminals and printers.

TACTICIAN

Tactician is a full featured spreadsheet which also provides data analysis functionality for applications to Informix developers and end users. It has direct links to the Informix database, and virtually any amount of information can be processed. Tactician also includes a powerful macro language, and works equally well with character or graphical devices.

New Informix User Group BBS System

We have a NEW Mid-Atlantic Informix User Group BBS, thanks to Rick Montogomery and the IRS. The Internal Revenue Service has established a sub-board on their public bulletin board for use by the Mid-Atlantic Informix Users Group. The board is available 24 hours, however, the BBS administrator requests that Non-IRS users utilize the 9600 baud line after 5:00 pm and before 7:00 am weekdays.

The system is fairly self explanatory, however if you have any questions, please call the appropriate individual identified below:

Connections/Hardware/Software:			Marianne Crockford or Brian
Hupman at 202-501-5173
Sub-Board Contents/User Group Questions:	Rick Montgomemery at 703-756-7273

		The numbers are : 	202-219-9977  at 1200/2400
					202-219-9991 at 9600 ( V.32, Non IRS callers 
									after 5:00 pm)
					202-219-9995 at 9600-19200 (Trailbizer/PEP, Non
IRS callers after 5:00 pm)
		Set your communications software to no parity, 8 bits and 1 stop
bit. 
		You will prompted to register and fill in a brief online
questioner.  
		From the main menu, select 'J' followed by the name of our sub-
board, MAIUG.  Feel free to test out the options.  There is a
bulletin available for you to download more detailed instructions.

Please use this BBS to send and receive information about the User Group. We will be uploading all information from our newsletters. If you have any questions please leave a message for Rick Montogomery on the BBS or call 703-756-7273.

Last Meeting

At our last meeting we had a large number of members present, but Westmount USA, who had been scheduled to talk to us about their CASE products failed to show up. However, Informix can through with a presentation of HyperScript Tools. HyperScript Tools is Informix's new visual development environment for creating graphical database applications. This is a very impressive product and we will be having a more detailed demonstration in the future.

Westmount USA has scheduled a demonstration for members of our user group who are interested in seeing the product. The following is a fax from Westmount describing their product and the date and time of the presentation.

Westmount USA, headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, recently introduced version 3.0 of the Integrated-CASE, ISEE, for Informix developers. Westmount tools provide an effective approach towards the software development process by combining automated structured methods and 4GL environments. Westmount for Informix developers now supports:

- Informix-OnLine and Informix-SE

- SQL generation with stored procedures

- Reverse engineering

- Fully customizable 4GL generation

- Informix-ESQL/C generation with codeframe regeneration

- Programming environment with complete documentation

Westmount will be hosting a presentation and demonstration of version 3.0 at their Arlington facilities on June 8th at 10:00 am for the Mid-Atlantic Informix Users Group. Westmount is located at 1555 Wilson Blvd., Suite 300, just over the Key Bridge from DC. Bob Carter, Westmount Sales Consultant, can be reached at (703) 875-8799 for additional details.

Informix Worldwide 93 User Conference

The Informix conference is July 12-15 1993 at San Jose, California. It includes tutorials, presentations and exhibits of products. I went to the conference last year and it was well worth it. Call 1-800-392-0207 for information and registration. There are special rates if you register before the end of the month. We will be sharing an Informix User Group both with the Denver Informix User Group at the conference.

Newsletter Sponsorship

We have three companies committed to sponsoring the next newsletter and I plan to produce a special edition for the Informix Worldwide conference. The next edition will be handed out at the conference in addition to being sent to our regular mailing list. This could reach over 1,000 Informix Users. We are looking for a few more companies who would be willing to share the costs of this special addition. If you are interested, please call me, at 703-25-0267. Also if you would like to include articles in the next newsletter, please give me a call.

Question and Answer Session

A question and answer session will be held during each meeting. The purpose of the session is to provide members a forum in which technical questions can be answered by members, as well as Informix staff. Please use the Question and Answer Session Form at the end of the newsletter for submitting your questions.

Informix User Group Membership

If you would like to be included on the Informix User Group mailing list, please provide the contact information on the attached Question and Answer Session Form, and mail or fax it to the address indicated on the form. Currently their are no membership fees. The group meets every other month and the newsletter comes out about six times a year.

ANSI Terminal emulation and Informix 4GL Terminal capabilities.

In the Q&A sessions at our user group meetings several questions have been asked about creating termcap entries for PCs using ansi terminal emulation software to work with Informix 4GL. The following is the ansi termcap entry I have used with Procomm, Xtalk for Windows, SCO Unix ansi console and SCO ansi X terminal emulation. It provides graphic lined boxes around a window, function keys 1 to 10, and the 8 basic colors Informix 4GL programs support. Be very careful in changing your termcap file. This may break other applications or leave out capabilities used in other applications.

# modified Informix 4GL ansi color, function keys, and box borders
ansi|Ansi standard crt:\
	:al=\E[L:am:bs:cd=\E[J:ce=\E[K:cl=\E[2J\E[H:cm=\E[%i%d;%dH:co#80:\
	:dc=\E[P:dl=\E[M:dn=\E[B:ei=:ho=\E[H:ic=\E[@:im=:li#24:\
	:nd=\E[C:ms:pt:so=\E[7m:se=\E[m:us=\E[4m:ue=\E[m:up=\E[A:\
	:kb=^h:ku=\E[A:kd=\E[B:kl=\E[D:kr=\E[C:eo:\
	# capability to display graphic boxes using the PC ansi character set \
	:gs=:ge=:gb=\332\300\277\331\304\263:\
	# function keys F1 (k0) to F10 (k9) \
	:k0=\E[M:k1=\E[N:k2=\E[O:k3=\E[P:k4=\E[Q:\
	:k5=\E[R:k6=\E[S:k7=\E[T:k8=\E[U:k9=\E[V:\
	# informix 4gl color support  - the next line is one very long line \
:ZA=\E[%?%p1%{0}%=%t0m\E[37%e%p1%{1}%=%t33%e%p1%{2}%=%t35%e%p1%{3}%=%t31%e%p1%
{4}%=%t36%e%p1%{5}%=%t32%e%p1%{6}%=%t34%e%p1%{7}%=%t30%;m\E[40m%?%p2%t\E[7m%;%?%p3%t\E[5m%;%?%p4%t\E[4m%;:

To test the results, set up a working directory ( e.g. $HOME/work ) and create the termcap file listed above. The lines beginning with a # are comments. All lines need to end with a \ which indicates that the commands continue on the next line. The last line that begins with :ZA= is one long line and cannot be separated by returns. In vi just keep typing until you reach the final :. To test the termcap set the following variables:

	TERMCAP=$HOME/work/termcap; export TERMCAP
	TERM=ansi; export TERM

There is one difference between the SCO ansi console and PC based terminal emulation packages like Procomm and Xtalk. Procomm and Xtalk use the 25th line for a status line leaving only 24 lines for the terminal emulation. The SCO console and ansi X term can use 25 lines. You can change the capability li#24 to li#25 if you only use an SCO console or X terminal. I have had problems with Procomm and vi because vi uses terminfo and terminfo was set to 25 lines per screen for an ansi terminal.

The following is the terminal setup in Procomm. Press Alt-S to get the setup menu and select Terminal - General.

PROCOMM PLUS SETUP UTILITY TERMINAL OPTIONS
A- Terminal emulation ................ 		ANSI
B- Duplex ............................ 		FULL
C- Software flow control (XON/XOFF) .. 		ON
D- Hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) ... 		ON
E- Line wrap ......................... 		ON
F- Screen scroll ..................... 		ON
G- CR translation .................... 		CR
H- BS translation .................... 		NON-DESTRUCTIVE
I- Break length (milliseconds) ....... 		350
J- Enquiry (ENQ) ..................... 		OFF

To define and setup the function keys press Alt-F8 in Procomm. The following function keys need to be defined.

F1 ..... ^[[M
F2 ..... ^[[N
F3 ..... ^[[O
F4 ..... ^[[P 
F5 ..... ^[[Q
F6 ..... ^[[R
F7 ..... ^[[S
F8 ..... ^[[T
F9 ..... ^[[U
F10 .... ^[[V

On the next page is a 4GL program I use to test the capabilities and the termcap entries for a new terminal. It creates a window with a border to test the line graphics capability. Then it displays 12 lines with different attributes. Finally, using the prompt command you can test each of the function keys.

The bold, dim, and underline attributes will display somewhat differently from what you would expect. Using Procomm, an X term or SCO ansi console, bold displays as red and dim displays as blue. The underline attribute displays as blue under Procomm, as an underline under X term, and as white under SCO ansi. All the other attributes display as expected except the last attribute. The last line displays the attribute black which is the same as the background color so it will be invisible.

I would be interested in your comments or other additional termcap suggestions. Please leave any messages or comments on the user group bulletin board or call me at 703-256-0267.

#############################################################################
#           Copyright 1993 Advanced DataTools Corporation
# Module:	@(#)termtest.4gl	1.4	Date: 93/05/10
# Author: 	Lester B. Knutsen
# Discription:	Program to test the Informix 4GL capabilities of a terminal
#############################################################################
main
define ans char(1) 
# Test if border line graphics are displayed correctly
open window test_box at 5,10 with 16 rows, 60 columns
	attribute ( border , prompt line last )
display "Terminal Color, Graphics and Function key Test" at 1,7

# Test color and display attributes
display "Line 1 - reverse" 	at 2,1 	attribute( reverse )
display "Line 2 - bold" 	at 3,1 	attribute( bold )
display "Line 3 - dim" 	at 4,1 	attribute( dim )
display "Line 4 - underline" at 5,1 	attribute( underline )
display "Line 5 - white" 	at 6,1 	attribute( white )
display "Line 6 - yellow" 	at 7,1 	attribute( yellow )
display "Line 7 - magenta" 	at 8,1 	attribute( magenta )
display "Line 8 - red" 	at 9,1 	attribute( red )
display "Line 9 - cyan" 	at 10,1 attribute( cyan )
display "Line 10 - green" 	at 11,1 attribute( green )
display "Line 11 - blue" 	at 12,1 attribute( blue )
display "Line 12 - black" 	at 13,1 attribute( black ) # invsible line

# Test Function keys F1 to F10
while ( true )
	prompt "Press a Function Key [F1-F10] or Q to quit" for char ans
		on key (F1) error "F1 Function key pressed"
		on key (F2) error "F2 Function key pressed"
		on key (F3) error "F3 Function key pressed"
		on key (F4) error "F4 Function key pressed"
		on key (F5) error "F5 Function key pressed"
		on key (F6) error "F6 Function key pressed"
		on key (F7) error "F7 Function key pressed"
		on key (F8) error "F8 Function key pressed"
		on key (F9) error "F9 Function key pressed"
		on key (F10) error "F10 Function key pressed"
	end prompt
 	if ans  = "q" or ans = "Q" then exit while end if
end while
end main