VX-REXX is a highly extensible

REXX Rexx (Restructured Extended Executor) is a programming language that can be interpreted or compiled. It was developed at IBM by Mike Cowlishaw. It is a structured, high-level programming language designed for ease of learning and reading. ...

GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

development system for

OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 ...

developed by

Watcom Watcom International Corporation was a software company, which was founded in 1981 by Wes Graham and Ian McPhee. Founding staff (Fred Crigger, Jack Schueler and McPhee) were formerly members of Professor Graham's Computer Systems Group at the Uni ...

and initially released in 1993. Much of the new code in

eComStation eComStation or eCS is an operating system based on OS/2 Warp for the 32-bit x86 architecture. It was originally developed by Serenity Systems and Mensys BV under license from IBM. It includes additional applications, and support for new hardwa ...

and

ArcaOS ArcaOS is an operating system based on OS/2, developed and marketed by Arca Noae, LLC under license from IBM. It was codenamed Blue Lion during its development. It builds on OS/2 Warp 4.52 by adding support for new hardware, fixing defects and l ...

has been written using VX-REXX. Though REXX is itself a 3GL, the VX-REXX interface allows you to build REXX programs using a combination of 3GL and

4GL A fourth-generation programming language (4GL) is any computer programming language that belongs to a class of languages envisioned as an advancement upon third-generation programming languages (3GL). Each of the programming language generations ai ...

techniques; its

drag-and-drop In computer graphical user interfaces, drag and drop is a pointing device gesture in which the user selects a virtual object by "grabbing" it and dragging it to a different location or onto another virtual object. In general, it can be used to ...

interface to inserting code allows quite complex programs to be built without actually entering any code. VX-REXX's interface is itself written in VX-REXX, which means that it can be extended and/or modified using REXX code; it also has a number of macro hooks which can be used to add to its functionality directly. The toolbox contains a number of standard tools (static text, group box, push button, radio button, check box, picture box, image push/radio button, list box, combo box (and drop-down), single and multiline entry field, slider) and some more specialized ones (container, value-set, notebook, DDE client, timer). Additional controls can be built using SOM and distributed as .DLL files; anything from simple variants of existing controls (such as a tri-state check box, or a self-validating entry field) to completely custom-drawn controls (for example, a self-contained

tic-tac-toe Tic-tac-toe (American English), noughts and crosses (Commonwealth English), or Xs and Os (Canadian or Irish English) is a paper-and-pencil game for two players who take turns marking the spaces in a three-by-three grid with ''X'' or ''O''. T ...

board) can be written in C, compiled, and added to a VX-REXX project.

References

External links

Visual REXX Faceoff - Part 1
information on VX-REXX, from a review of it and VisPro REXX (may appear somewhat outdated, but the concepts discussed are still valid)
Dev - REXX - VxREXX - OS/2 Site
collection of resources about VX-REXX *Richardson, Ronny (1995), ''Writing VX-REXX Programs'', McGraw-Hill, . {{Compu-prog-stub Integrated development environments OS/2 software Rexx 1993 software