4GL design techniques

I would like to get some input regarding the following topics as pertaining to the use of Informix 4GL: 1. Compilation and organization of compiled programs and screens 2. Maintaining a consistent look and feel across applications regarding the use of message line, error line and prompt line. 3. Execution of called applications. My present situation is that I have a good amount of knowledge about Unix and Informix 4GL. I can make everything work but I cannot seem to pull the knowledge together in a synergistic fashion sometimes. I have this enormous concern that after spending months on this project I will be saying too often "If only I had ......". ITEM 1 organization and compilation I got some great ideas from 4GEN's newsletter regarding the use of make files to compile applications, modules and programs. I am using their models for the most part. As far as compiled applications is concerned I am doing the following: environment var. DBPATH=/usr2/rhdb I am storing all of the compiled 4gl and per in a directory: /usr2/rhdb/bin this directory is in PATH. All of the forms are opened with ... from "bin/htyscr1" In addition /usr2/rhdb has a number of unrelated Informix databases. All of the programs for each database are located in /usr2/rhdb/bin. Questions How does everybody else organize this? Do I need to have any concerns later about ease of use and moving things around? ITEM 2 consistent look and feel I wanted screen manipulation functions in my application programs to work in the same way regarding function keys for screen operations. One thing that I wanted was to display the function key menu on each screen. So I have set options to message line first+1, error line last-1, prompt line first, comment line last-1, I made comment and error the same because I could not think of any situation where there would be conflicts. I have a routine to display function menu on line 24 of screen. I also have a routine to flash a message on line 23. So I now have open form srcd ...... display form srcd call show_inst("F1(accept) F2(help) F3(pg up).....F16(abort)", inst_row) if appropriate at the end of a function would be call show_inst("", inst_row) Does anyone have any better methodology for this? ITEM 3 running applications Generally I code the following: menu "xxxx" command "REPORTS" "Select report program" run "rptprg" returning xxxxxx . . . . end menu or where cmd = "htyrpt 'select * from xxxxx where xxxxx order by xxxx'" run cmd returning condition_code Any comments regarding the above are appreciated. Michael J. Kuhn Consultant phone :301-254-7060 e-mail :c/o Baltimore Rh Typing Laboratory, Inc. phone :301-225-9595 uunet!rhlab!kuhn