Convert NetExpress project and programs and screens to Visual Cobol

[claudiomiguelmuller]

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 26 January 2011]

Hello,
i am Cláudio from Brazil.

I dont speak english very well.

How can i do to convert project in netexpress to Visual Cobol ?

Programs, Screens and others.

[MichaelB1]

Claudio, we need more information to help determine the best approach.
What kind of application is it currently? single tier, client server, web based, etc.
What type of screens? Character based or GUI (if GUI what kind?)

In general though if you have your inventory of COBOL programs and copybooks, it is fairly straightforward to define projects in Visual COBOL, define your copybook paths, Add existing COBOL programs to the project(s), and recompile. You may also need to adjust or use your existing compiler directive if you have any in use beyond the defaults.

Knowing what kind of user interface or screens is important though. Having all of the above information will also help determine whether to build Native or managed code (.NET) projects as a first step and ultimately what approach to take in migrating the application.

[claudiomiguelmuller]

Hi,

What kind of application is it currently? single tier, client server, web based, etc.
NetExpress Project generate only apliccation single tier.

What type of screens? Character based or GUI (if GUI what kind?)
GUI Screens, with Dialog System.

What i convert this sources to visual Cobol ?

[Robert Collins · Accepted solution]

I'm afraid your options are somewhat limited at the moment.

There are currently no tools to convert a Dialog System application to a Winform application.

And you cannot import a NetExpress project into Visual Studio.

On a very similar project I recently worked on, we took a Dialog System application and broke it into its base elements. There are three distinct layers, presentation, business logic, and data access (I/O), that you should focus on.

Using Visual COBOL, we took the exising procedural code and created classes and methods specific to the area they addressed.

Then we created a new user interface using Winforms, ASP.Net and C# and tied it to the new COBOL class elements we created.

It took less time than you would think to change it over and the results were something that was very maintainable.

[claudiomiguelmuller]

Please,
my software that i need to convert is this www.cobol.com.ar/files2sql.

Can i re-write in new Visual Cobol cobol-sources and gui-sources-dialog-system?

Cláudio.

[Robert Collins]

Yes it can be reworked. You will need to pick a new interface though. Since you are familiar with Dialog System, I would recommend building the user interface using Winforms.

[Suresh5]

I'd recommend that you simply redesign the existing screens in Visual Studio rather than depending on any tool or writing a tool that does it. We've been that route, but not worth it. I'm not sure how many screens you have, but in our application, we have around 50+ screens, which I was able to redesign in Visual Studio within no time. It hardly took a couple of hours. Bubba :0) was right!... there are no tools available at this time, not sure if there are any plans on rolling out one.

Thanks,