Designing and Programming CICS Applications

Chapter 13. Programming the Visual Basic Program

In this chapter:

• Writing the Graphical User Interface

• Implementing the Print Function

• Implementing the Online Help

• Implementing the Data Validation Code

• Accessing Applications on the CICS Server

• Communicating with CICS

• What’s Next….

Having designed the Visual Basic component, now is the time to start programming it. And having programmed it, you need to set up the required configuration so that it can communicate with the CICS application.

Writing the Graphical User Interface

In Designing the Graphical User Interface in Chapter 12, we described the functions that would appear in the Log In panel, and the two main user interface screens, the Main Menu and the Account Details form. You can see the full Visual Basic application by looking at the code on the CD that accompanies this book. In this section, we look at how some of the controls on the user interface screens are coded.

Controls used on the Main Menu include:

• Data entry fields for the user to enter information

• List boxes to display the results of a name search, and the request type options

• Push buttons to perform actions

• Keyboard short cuts to enable experienced users to perform actions quicker

• Tab indexes to scroll from one data entry field to another

• The Main Menu also includes two other design elements: the Print control and links to help information (Figure 13-1)

Figure 13-1. The Main Menu ...