Understanding DDS Design concepts

Screen Designer uses the concept of a screen, which simulates a group of records that will be displayed together when an application runs. Use the Design page screen controls to create new screens, delete existing screens, and add records to a screen or remove existing records from it.

Report Designer uses the concept of a report, which simulates a group of records that will be printed together when an application runs. Use the Report controls to create new reports, delete existing reports, and add records to a report or remove existing records from it. You can add the same record multiple times to a report.

When you open a DDS display file with Screen Designer or a DDS printer file with Report Designer for editing, the source is analyzed. This step has to finish before you can start editing. An indicator at the lower right of the workbench with the label Parsing DDS model displays while this is running. If you previously edited your DDS display or printer file with CODE Designer, information about record groups and indicator sets are converted and stored in XML format as comment lines at the end of your source. See Migrating from CODE Designer for additional considerations.

Information about screens, reports, and which records belong to a screen or report, as well as indicator sets and field values is stored in the XML at the end of the source. So, even if you did not make changes to the source but you created screens or reports, or assigned records to screens or reports, you need to save your source member at the end of the edit session to keep this information.


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