Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!enea!sommar
From: sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: FMS/TDMS vs SMG
Message-ID: <2840@enea.se>
Date: 13 Mar 88 21:00:25 GMT
References: <2778@enea.se> <2325@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: sommar@enea.UUCP(Erland Sommarskog)
Followup-To: comp.os.vms
Organization: ENEA DATA AB, Sweden
Lines: 40


Christopher Chiesa (cfchiesa@bsu-cs.UUCP) writes:
>I haven't had any direct experience with TDMS, per se, but FMS is the *ONLY*
>screen- or form- or field-oriented user interface that allows the terminal 
>operator to move back and forth between the various fields of a screen, letting
>him modify and adjust til everything is "just right."  In my job I am required

Christopher corrected this in another posting, to say that FMS is the only
he has used, that's a big difference. Anyway, TDMS does the same. And I
should be very surprised if this is not standard with products of this
kind that comes with database like Oracle et al, although I have no
experience of them. 

The program you talk of Christopher, is home-brewed I suppose?

( >> is me.)
>> Another situation where TDMS may get dropped is the following:
>> You may in TDMS define that a field must not be empty, only
>> numbers are allowed etc. So if the user tries to deviate, he will
>> get "input required", "numeric required" etc. Fine. Unless all
>> your menus are in Swedish...
>
>I don't kow what you mean by "...TDMS may get dropped," but for what it's 
>worth, "you can do the same thing in FMS, too!"  And you can change the entire
>layout of the FORMS without having to recompile the software that USES them.

What I meant by "get dropped" is that this is a "feature" which may make you
decide to not use TDMS. The reason is that the error message are hard-
coded in English, there is no way to change them. (Well, patching, but
that's absurd.) So if you want these tests *and* entirely an Swedish-
speaking system, you have to forget TDMS. (And I assume FMS?).

Changing the layout of the forms with affecting the program is also
possible with TDMS. However, you have to re-build the request library,
and that is about as heavy as a recompilation.
-- 
Erland Sommarskog       
ENEA Data, Stockholm        
sommar@enea.UUCP           "Si tu crois l'amour tabou...
                            Regarde bien, les yeux d'un fou!!!" -- Ange