Managing multiple environments

If you are writing an application builder, you might want to maintain separate environments for each application.

To separate application environments:

  1. Select an existing application or create a new one.
  2. Load the existing application environment, or create and load a new one using the LOAD statement.
  3. Execute the USE statement to make the selected application environment current.
  4. If the application exists, run it according to user input. If the application is new, do the following:
    1. Allocate the number of available color and font table entries for the new application by setting the NUM–ENTRIES attribute of the COLOR–TABLE and FONT–TABLE handles.
    2. Set internal colors and fonts from user input using the SYSTEM–DIALOG COLOR and FONT statements, or set internal colors using the COLOR–TABLE handle.
    3. Create application widgets and code from user input using the current color and font definitions.
  5. Test and revise application resources and widgets according to user input.
  6. Repeat Steps 1 through 5 for as many applications as you need to work on simultaneously.
  7. When the application terminates, do the following:
    1. Save the color and font table entries to the current environment using the PUT–KEY–VALUE statement with the COLOR and FONT options.
    2. Save the application code to procedure files.
    3. Delete all widgets for the application from ABL memory using the DELETE WIDGET statement.
    4. Remove the current application environment from ABL memory using the UNLOAD statement.
  8. Execute the USE statement according to user input to set a new current environment, then repeat Steps 4 through 8 until all work is done.