Front-end work is necessary only in the following situations:
When you want a graphical display and haven't built one yet
If you want your application to display a full Windows graphical user interface (GUI) on the client, but it is currently character-based, you can develop a GUI using Acucorp's graphical workbench, AcuBench. ACUCOBOL-GT includes a character-to-graphical screen conversion wizard to assist in the process, and the workbench is designed to automatically utilize many of the graphical features of ACUCOBOL-GT.
When the limitations of the character display are unacceptable
Due to certain limitations and restrictions, if you deploy a character-based application in Acucorp's thin client configuration, certain display functions will not have the characteristics that you expect. Many will simply display in another fashion. But some unsupported display functions may be ignored. If this is unacceptable to you, you can alter your code to work around the limitations.
When your program is highly interactive and you want to deploy it in wide-area networks like the Internet
Because highly interactive programs require frequent communication between the client and server, they are not practical for thin client configurations deployed over wide-area networks like the Internet. The more interactive the program, the slower the performance is over slow connections.
If your program was coded with event procedures (handlers), for instance, you should consider removing all but the events that your program really cares about, because event procedures result in frequent "calls" from the UI layer back to the COBOL layer. If your program tracks mouse movements or watches for interactions with controls, you may want to make further modifications. You can choose to redesign the screen or you can just simplify your program's interaction with the screen. The goal is to reduce the number of times that the client and server have to communicate.