Screen generator

A screen generator, also known as a screen painter, screen mapper,^[1] or forms generator is a software package (or component thereof) which enables data entry screens to be generated declaratively, by "painting" them on the screen WYSIWYG-style, or through filling-in forms, rather than requiring writing of code to display them manually.^[2][3][4][5] 4GLs commonly incorporate a screen generator feature.^[6] They are also commonly found bundled with database systems, especially entry-level databases.^[7] A screen generator is one aspect of an application generator, which can also include other functions such as report generation and a data dictionary.^[8][9] The earliest screen generators were character-based; by the 1990s, GUI support became common, and then support for generating HTML forms as well. Some screen generators work by generating code to display the screen in a high-level language (for example, COBOL); others store the screen definition in a data file or in database tables, and then have a runtime component responsible for actually displaying the form and receiving and validating user input.

Examples of screen generators include:

• IBM Screen Definition Facility II:^[10] generates screens for CICS BMS, IMS MFS, ISPF, GDDM and CSP/AD.^[11]
• Performix for Informix.^[5][12]
• Microsoft Visual Basic^[13]
• the forms component of Microsoft Access^[7]
• Oracle Developer,^[13] in particular its Oracle Forms component
• the QDesign component of PowerHouse
• SystemBuilder/SB+
• the Screen Painter component of SAP's ABAP Workbench^[14]
• the FoxView component of FoxPro.^[15][16][17] FoxView was originally developed by Luis Castro as a dBASE screen generator named ViewGen; Fox purchased it and bundled it with FoxPro 1.0.^[18] Later, Fox replaced Castro's code with their own screen painter code.^[19]
• dBASE included a built-in screen generator in dBASE IV onwards;^[20][21] in dBASE III and earlier, third party screen generators were available, including the already mentioned ViewGen ^[18]
• DPS 1100 for UNIVAC 1100 series mainframes.^[22][23]