What is FMLI?

The Form and Menu Language Interpreter provides a framework for developers to write applications and application interfaces that use menus and forms. It controls many aspects of screen management for you. That means you do not have to be concerned with the low-level details of creating or placing frames, providing users with a means of navigating between or within frames, or processing the use of forms and menus. Nor do you need to worry about what kind of terminal your application will run on. FMLI takes care of all that for you.

FMLI is a high-level programming tool having two main parts:

• The Form and Menu Language is a programming language for writing scripts that define how an application will be presented to users. The syntax of the Form and Menu Language is similar to that of the UNIX system shell programming language, and includes the following: variable setting and evaluation, built-in commands and functions, use of and escape from special characters, redirection of input and output, conditional statements, interrupt signal handling, and the ability to set various terminal attributes. The Form and Menu Language also includes sets of ``descriptors'' that are used to define or customize attributes of frames and other features of your application.

• The Form and Menu Language Interpreter, fmli(1), is a command interpreter that sets up and controls the video display screen on a terminal, using instructions from your scripts to supplement FMLI's predefined screen control mechanisms. FMLI scripts can also invoke UNIX system executables, either in the background or in full screen mode. The Form and Menu Language Interpreter operates similarly to the UNIX command interpreter sh(1). At run time it parses the scripts you have written, giving you the advantages of quick prototyping and easy maintenance.