ISPF Programmer’s Guide

10Panels – create and use

In this chapter, I will explain how you can easily define and use ISPF panels. To control applications panels are suited much better than using the simple queries SAY and PULL. Therefore, if you want to create elegant applications in ISPF you should already dominate the creation and use of ISPF panels. The ISPF provides very simple methods and tools to create screens and to use these masks in programs. In ISPF, screens are referred consistently to as panels. There are two ways to create panels:

–Use the Dialog Tag Language (DTL).

–Use of panel definition statements.

10.1The Dynamic Tag Language (DTL)

The DTL was added to the ISPF later. Thus, you have the possibility to define the panel using a description language. ...