In an effort to reduce the amount of work required to convert a traditional text-based application into one that uses a graphical user interface, Acucorp has developed a screen conversion tool known as the Character-to-GUI Wizard. The tool works by watching a running character application and, at a specified point, constructing an equivalent graphical screen. This screen is then automatically imported into the AcuBench Screen Designer where you can make modifications to it as desired. AcuBench then produces a Screen Section description of the graphical screen that you can integrate back into your original program. Because it requires the AcuBench Screen Designer, the Character-to-GUI Wizard is only available on Windows platforms.
The Character-to-GUI Wizard is designed to work with any character screen that you have created using ACUCOBOL-GT syntax. This allows it to work with most existing character-based programs. Note that the wizard works with programs using either of ACUCOBOL-GT's two main screen handling techniques: the Screen Section and inline ACCEPT/DISPLAY statements. Although the wizard uses a variety of heuristics to decide how to convert the code, these do not always produce the desired result, and some rework in the Screen Designer should be expected. For usage information on the Character-to-GUI Wizard, please refer to the AcuBench User's Guide.