IBM Graphical Data Display Manager (GDDM)
Add visual presentations to your host applications with GDDM
IBM® Graphical Data Display Manager (GDDM) is a family of programs that provides presentation services in IBM host data processing applications. These services are comprised of a set of functions for showing data on IBM display terminals and other devices. GDDM will send the data to a wide range of devices besides displays, including printers, plotters and host-attached personal computers. GDDM also accepts input, reading alphanumeric data from a keyboard, graphic data from a tablet or mouse, and image data from a scanner.
Benefits
Create graphics, images and alphanumeric text for display, or print for a range of supported output devices. Read device input and divide screens into independent windows.
Take advantage of a set of user interfaces in the form of APIs to create graphics and draw charts, and enable visual data to be input to and output from application programs and GDDM utilities.
Avoid writing your own applications to support GDDM. Many IBM and other software packages take advantage of GDDM — you may even find that you are already using one of them.
- Subroutine APIs
- User control facility
- Image symbol editor
- Composite Document Print Utility (CDPU)
- File conversion utilities
- Print queue manager
IBM Graphical Data Display Manager features
A base set of user interfaces is provided in the form of APIs that support different programming languages and ready-made applications and utilities. GDDM Presentation Graphics Facility (GDDM-PGF) provides a set of presentation-graphics API routines to provide simpler alternative base APIs for drawing charts. Application programmers can call the subroutines to enable graphics, images and alphanumeric text to be input to and output from application programs and GDDM utilities.
A set of commonly required application functions helps users of display terminals. It includes panning and zooming; size, position, and orientation for printing and plotting; scrolling, sizing and positioning of operator windows. Enhance GDDM application programs, including user-written programs, with no additional programming. Press a PA or PF key and GDDM superimposes a menu on the bottom of the screen that lists all of the user control functions for use with the current application.
The image symbol editor is a collection of characters or shapes formed by a pattern of dots. Each dot corresponds to a display point on a device. Image symbols are of fixed size and can be color-defined. Several image symbol sets are supplied for use as typefaces. Each set contains the range of country-extended-code-page (CECP) symbols, and image symbol sets are also provided for various shading patterns and marker characters.
This utility provides combinations of formatted text, graphics and images. For example, a LIST3820 file in the VM environment is a composite document. A composite document can be an Advanced Function Printing Data Stream (AFPDS) or a Composite Document Presentation Data Stream (CDPDS). When a composite document is displayed, the screen rendering approximates the printed version. Documents printed with CDPU can be directed to any printer that supports printing of composite documents.
GDDM offers utilities for converting files from one format to another, including: ADMUGIF, which converts a GDDM file to a Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) file; ADMUCG, which converts a Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM) to a GDDM ADMGDF (graphics data format) file; ADMUGC, which converts an ADMGDF file to CGM format; and ADMUPCx, which converts files from ADMGDF format to Picture Interchange Format (PIF), and from PIF to ADMGDF.
A print queue manager (ADMPQM) allows system operators to manage the GDDM master print queue on TSO dynamically, without having to stop the TSO print utility.
Technical details
GDDM requires one of the following operating systems:
- IBM MVS™/ESA
- IBM OS/390®
- VM/ESA, VSE/ESA
- IBM z/OS®
- IBM z/VM®
- The operating system includes all needed software
No additional hardware is needed.
Resources
GDDM guide for end-users.
Base application programming reference manual for GDDM.
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