Object oriented apparatus and method for providing a graphical user interface for host-based software applications

摘要

An object oriented computer apparatus and method provides a graphical user interface (GUI) for existing host-based (i.e., green screen) applications by defining some object oriented classes that reside on the client workstation, and by substituting function calls for display data in the green screen application with function calls that interface with the object oriented GUI defined by the classes. In this manner the present invention takes advantage of the processing power of client workstations in a network computing environment by having the client run the GUI. The underlying green screen application is modified to replace all display function calls with new function calls to the GUI, but this change is relatively minor and does not affect the underlying core logic of the application. In addition, the new function calls access the GUI screens directly without having to determine which screen is being displayed.