The ISIS Times - February 1996 - Page 3
Breaking Through The Limitations Of PAGEDEF
Every user of enhanced line-mode printing has been to the edges of
his or her functional universe, regardless whether it was Xerox JSL or
IBM PAGEDEF. By far too much time is still wasted in trying to teach the
old dog (JSL or PAGEDEF) new tricks.
- Highlights:
Import existing PAGEDEF or JSL.
Logical pages without N_UP.
Flexible conditional forms use.
Add text formatting to PAGEDEF
Migrate JSL/DJDE applications.
Accept the inevitable! As great as PAGEDEF or even Xerox JSL were 10
years ago, they have very strong limitations when looking at the requirements
of marketing departments and customers today. Xerox JSL is the wrong way
to continue, because it only works on certain types of hardware. PAGEDEF
is definitely the best way to build forms/data applications in a printer
independent manner. The print application can be distributed and archived
without the usual CPU requirements of a statement or text formatter.
Migration to more functionality, without recoding of the complete application,
is the requirement. Therefore, the product to choose has to build on the
functionality of PAGEDEF and JSL and not use something completely different
like a text product . To use the IBM PSF API would be better than to code
the AFPDS output and functions yourself or to redevelop with a pure text
formatting product like DCF or Compuset. But having to go to COBOL is
the wrong direction, because of the original (re-)development effort and
the programming and test time for every change. These new functions must
be usable without having to change the applications producing the ASA/MCH
or DJDE file.
The Papyrus DocEXEC solution to this problem is to provide an import
for PAGEDEF and for Xerox JSL and to support most of their existing functions.
Extend them with all the requirements users had for a long time and you
get the most effective way to new functionality. Paired with the incomparable
visual and graphical development and testing power of the Papyrus Designer,
migration is fast and simple. Look at the common problem of having to
assemble various forms onto a number of logical pages on a single sheet.
All possible variations of forms would have to be merged into a single
large form with JSL or PAGEDEF. With Papyrus you define logical pages
for the sheet and select forms for each conditionally.
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