MVtools is a set of over 350 databasic programs. They can be used as a subroutine library providing additional functions to your existing code. Alternatively they can be used to build a system without writing any programs atall! You can also use MVtools to dress up an old application and provide a new front end.
All the source code can be modified using an editor but no business rules or application specific code should ever be programmed into the source code on the MVBP file.
If you want to make permanent changes to the MVtools source code it is best to email the changed code back to us so that your changes can become part of the next release. If you don’t do this you will find yourself developing at a tangent and will not be able to take advantage of any future releases without these clearing out all of your modifications..
MVtools can be used as a full 4GL development environment or as a subroutine library. To use it as a subroutine library, developers must include the common and equates MVCOMMON & MVEQUATES code plus any layout definitions they may use within their programs. For example: If you are referring to screen fields then you should include the layout for field properties MVFTMFLD.
Each platform behaves differently and may require
it's own version of a program in some cases.
This is done by redirecting to a platform specific subroutine. For
example the routine for capturing the last key from the keyboard
is MVGETCHR and this redirects to the subroutines D3GETCHR for D3
and UVGETCHR for Universe. This allows the entire system to be
easily ported at the cost of carrying a few redundant programs in the
main source code file.
The setup screen SPCMAN will store the type of multivalued database system that you are using. This directs the program code to the relevant subroutines so that the code will behave correctly for your platform.