How it works
MobileCOBOL is a small set of moving parts with one job: let a COBOL program describe a user interface, and let modern clients draw it. The program stays a COBOL program. The compiler stays your compiler.
Programs build screens with plain COBOL
A program creates a page, adds controls, and waits for events — using
ordinary CALL statements and a copybook of verbs. Buttons,
entries, lists, pickers, images, signatures, barcode scans: each is one
call. Two-way data binding keeps working storage and the screen in sync
without the program shuttling values by hand.
Existing screens don't have to be rebuilt
- ACUCOBOL SCREEN SECTION programs — character or graphical — run as modern UI without source changes, straight through the same daemon.
- Micro Focus Dialog System applications run against a drop-in replacement for the vendor runtime: the same screensets, the same data blocks, the same callouts — rendered in a browser or on a phone. When you're ready to retire the Dialog System runtime, a converter rewrites screensets into plain MobileCOBOL calls — still compiled by your Micro Focus compiler, still your code.
One protocol, many clients
Every client — the browser, the mobile apps, the desktop apps, and the reference clients for Flutter, React Native, Java Swing, WPF and Avalonia — speaks the same small wire protocol. That's a deliberate guarantee: the interface layer is replaceable, so choosing MobileCOBOL never re-creates the lock-in you're trying to escape.
Deployment fits your rules
The daemon installs on your servers. Programs can run on the server with thin clients, on the device with a live connection, or fully standalone on the device. Field sessions survive lost connections and resume cleanly. A signed manifest system handles distributing program updates to devices when you want it.
The developer kit
One installer carries the daemon, the clients, the copybook, pre-built demo programs for every supported compiler, and the bridge for each. Install it, pick your compiler, and the demo suite is running in minutes — then point it at your own source.