When the Character-to-GUI Wizard first displays a new graphical screen, it also displays the Properties dialog box so you can make changes if desired.
The Properties dialog box allows you to change the conversion rules that the wizard used when first creating your graphical screens. Changes to individual screen items are made using the Screen Designer in AcuBench after the wizard has finished.
The Properties dialog box contains the following options:
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Unboxed fields | Creates entry fields without boxes. The default is to use boxes. Unboxed entry fields are useful if, for example, you need the resulting screen to fit on a 640 x 480 display. Most of the time, however, you would not want to use this option, because the resulting screen does not have a Windows look |
| Layout | Lets you choose how the rows of the graphical screen are placed. The two Separate Rows options result in a Windows like look, but use more vertical screen space |
| Adjacent Rows | Makes entry fields on adjacent rows overlap and share a common border (if boxed). This option uses the minimum screen height |
| Separate Rows | Places a small amount of space between the adjacent rows such that the entry field boxes are clearly separate from each other |
| Separate Rows / 3D | Gives the same result as the Separate Rows option, except that each entry field has a 3-D border drawn for it |
| Font | Lets you pick the font that is used for all the controls (individual controls can be changed in the Screen Designer). Note that many fonts designed for word processing are taller than the built-in fonts for a particular point size. These fonts have additional white space built into them on the top and bottom edges and therefore use more vertical screen space than the built-in fonts |
| Small | Displays your control with the runtime's built-in proportional small font |
| Medium | Displays your control with the runtime's built-in proportional medium-sized font |
| Large | Displays your control with the runtime's built-in proportional large font |
| Fixed | Displays your control with the runtime's built-in fixed-width font |
| Traditional | Displays your control with the runtime's built-in traditional font, which uses a different underlying character set than Windows normally does. The traditional font mimics IBM's original character set |
| Custom | Allows you to select any font on the system for your controls. This option is available once you click the Pick button |
| Pick | Displays the Font dialog box, in which you can select the font, its style (for example, italic), and size for your control |
| Use Alternate Rules | Causes the wizard to re-evaluate the original character screen using slightly different conversion heuristics. Generally, the alternate rules work well if you are getting too many entry fields using the default rules |
| Size | Displays the current screen dimensions in pixels. This is useful when you want to ensure that the resulting window fits on a specific resolution screen. For example, you may want to make sure that the resulting screen is not larger than 800 x 600 pixels |
| OK | Finishes the conversion process. The wizard imports the graphical screen to the AcuBench Screen Designer and returns control to the original character program |
| Cancel | Cancels the conversion process. The converted screen is destroyed along with the editing window, and control returns to the original character program |
| Set Default | Records the current Properties dialog box settings in the registry. These settings become the default values for future screen conversions |
Any changes made in the Properties dialog box are immediately reflected in the graphical window. You can make three changes in the graphical window itself:
When you are finished editing screen properties, click OK and terminate your program normally; control returns to AcuBench. Use the AcuBench Screen Designer to further manipulate your screens as required.