The key features of PowerCOBOL are:
Abstracts the low-level Windows API to a higher level.
Uses COBOL as the language for responding to events and invoking other methods.
Follows the OO COBOL syntax model for interacting with GUI objects and their properties.
Provides COBOL edited data definitions using standard PICTURE clause syntax.
Supports calls to standard COBOL programs.
Gives guided development - pop-up menus let you know exactly what events, methods and properties apply to the selected object. You do not have to tackle hundreds of pages of documentation to retrieve this information.
Provides a WYSIWYG development environment in which you drag and drop objects onto forms and see the objects as they appear at execution time.
Includes all basic GUI controls.
Includes controls for multimedia features, DDE, and working with Microsoft Excel.
Supports the import of ActiveX controls, providing COBOL interfaces to these controls.
Is COM (Component Object Model) compliant - so you can mix and match PowerCOBOL code with other COM compliant code.
Includes an ADODataSource control to permit access to remote database servers using ADO (Microsoft® ActiveX® Data Object) functions and controls.
Supports for third party ADO controls.
The benefits of the PowerCOBOL approach will be quickly apparent to experienced COBOL programmers:
You don't have to learn a new scripting language to work in a GUI environment.
You don't have to search through hundreds of pages of low-level documentation to figure out what events might happen, which calls you can make or what properties apply to a given control.
You don't have to compile and execute your code to see if your GUI looks just as you intended it to look.
You can immediately put your COBOL knowledge to work.
You can integrate your existing application code with your new GUI code.
You can continue to write your code in the language designed for readability and maintainability.
