When you are working with Natural Single Point of Development, you will encounter a few limitations which are due to the different capabilities of the graphical user interface available on the local site and the character-based user interface that exists on the remote site. In addition, this document includes hints which are important for the efficient use of the remote development facilities.
This document covers the following topics:
You can use Natural's Single Point of Development with different versions of Natural on a variety of platforms. Depending on the server environment you are using together with Natural for Windows (client), the editors offer different features. For further information, refer to the section Editor Features With SPoD in the Natural for Windows Editors documentation.
The following topics are covered:
The following topics are covered:
All system commands which are not entered in the user interface of
Natural Studio are executed directly by the Development Server without control
of Natural Studio. As a result, the character-based representation of the
corresponding command appears in the terminal emulation window. This is the case
when the STACK TOP COMMAND mechanism is used or when
a system command is directly entered inside the
terminal emulation window.
During the mapping phase any STACK commands
entered in the text box Session Parameters are processed
within Natural Studio and the corresponding Natural Studio windows are
used.
The commands HELLO and
MAINMENU do not cause a screen output on the
development server side, since this would not make any sense in the SPoD
environment. Instead of the menu-driven user interface, the dialogs provided in
Natural Studio are used.
Using terminal commands in a SPoD environment is only possible within the terminal emulation window. Entering terminal commands in the command line of Natural Studio is not possible.
Moving and copying of error messages is different in remote and local environments:
When error messages are moved or copied within the remote environment or are moved or copied from the local to the remote environment or vice versa: the error messages involved are merged, that is,
error messages which already exist in the target environment are replaced,
messages which do not exist in the source library are kept in the target library,
messages which do not exist in the target library are added.
When error messages are moved or copied within the local environment, the messages involved are handled on file level, that is,
all error messages (that is, files) of a language are deleted and
the file from the source library is created anew in the target library.
Maps containing GUI elements can be moved or copied from the local environment to a remote environment. However, the GUI elements are not displayed when the map is being tested or executed on the remote environment.
For these maps, the consistency check for a map field is made as soon as the user input has been entered. Field sensitive maps can be moved or copied from the local environment to a remote environment. However, a field sensitive map cannot be tested or executed on a remote mainframe environment.
If you are using dynamic language assigned when calling other objects
such as INPUT USING MAP 'MAP1&', the connection between caller
and called object cannot be retrieved by using XRef Evaluation.
Natural on the mainframe supports case-sensitive calls to other objects
such as PERFORM SUBROUTINE. With the current version of SPoD, this
may lead to strange results when, in XRef Evaluation, trees are expanded and it
is not possible to request case-sensitive calls with the filter dialog.
It is currently not possible to reliably debug a Natural application
using ETID-based statements like GET TRANSACTION DATA.
The reason is that the debugger is started in a separate NDV server background session which cannot use the same ETID as applied in the NDV development session. The debug session always is using a generated ETID which differs from the ETID used by the application.
The working situation displayed in the library workspace of Natural Studio is based on the representation of the entire user system files.
The tree view window opens when the user connects to the Natural Development Server. For this, the entire system file has to be analyzed and the corresponding information has to be transferred from the Natural Development Server to the Natural Studio client. In the case of very large system files, the build-up of the tree view window can be very time consuming. Status information displayed in the status bar keeps the user informed about the progress of the screen build-up operation. This is to avoid the impression that the connection to the Natural Development Server might be interrupted.
Tip:
Switch on the status bar using the function of the menu bar. Make sure that the transfer rate of
your network is 100 Mbit/s at minimum.
Another possibility to reduce the amount of data read while mapping the environment is to supply filter definitions on system file or library level.
Tip:
In the context menu of a system file and library node it is possible
to apply filter definitions. Using these definitions on the client side, you
can limit the number of libraries/objects displayed in the tree view.
In the default configuration of Natural Studio, all operations which
result in a modification of the system file, for example, moving or copying
objects, but also a SAVE or
STOW command, will cause the tree view window
contents to be refreshed, which can be a very time consuming process in the
case of very large system files.
Tip:
By default, the Refresh function is set to
Full automatic refresh. Change the automatic refresh
function by choosing Optimized automatic refresh or
in the context menu.
Since the tree view of the application workspace displays only the objects that are linked to the application, the build-up of its tree view screen is consequently considerably faster, which is another advantage of using the application workspace.
The following restrictions apply to the Natural documentation and the Windows-based online help when you are using a Natural Development Server (NDV) for remote development:
The online help currently available with Natural Studio contains only the Natural for Windows documentation and the SPoD client documentation.
Therefore this online help may describe Natural features which are not or not yet supported on the UNIX platform.
Natural features that are available only on UNIX are missing.
Particularly in the sections dealing with the Natural programming language, minor but important differences due to hardware platforms, operating systems, etc. may exist.
We ask you to refer to the Natural for UNIX documentation set for full details.