For Information Management System (IMS™) applications, the Message Format Service
(MFS) is an editing facility that allows application programs to deal with
simple logical messages instead of device-dependent data.
MFS functions as an interface between the format of messages at a terminal
and the I/O formats in your program. This enables you to create well-designed
screens more efficiently, thus improving operator efficiency and accuracy.
The MFS Editor enables you to create and modify MFS messages and device format
definitions visually.
Editor features
Device format definitions
and their associated projects are displayed in the Project Explorer view.
The
Palette view provides
both click-and-drop and drag-and-drop access to the format definition components.
The editor provides additional capabilities with the
Outline and
Properties views.
The
MFS Editor provides the following pages for designing a device format definition.
- Design
Contains
the Design canvas and display customization options, including map filtering.
Contextual right-click menus provide
additional formatting and display options.
- Source
Provides
a text editor for directly editing the MFS source.
- Preview
Provides
terminal-style and Web preview modes.