One of the many new features of the Graphical User Interface released with version 2018 R1 is the capability to provide to a Window control of Gradient effects.

This capability comes as a property of the Window control and has three components:

Gradient-Color-1
This property allows you to set or retrieve the start color of the gradient effect of the Window control.
If this property is not set, but Gradient-Color-2 is set, then the start color of the gradient effect is black.
The gradient effect overrides the color set by Background-Color.

Gradient-Color-2
This property allows you to set or retrieve the end color of the gradient effect of the Window control.
If this property is not set, but Gradient-Color-1 is set, then the end color of the gradient effect is black.
The gradient effect overrides the color set by Background-Color.

Gradient-Orientation
This property allows you to set or retrieve the orientation of the gradient effect of the Window control, Possible values are:

None
0: NORTH-TO-SOUTH
1: NORTHEAST-TO-SOUTHWEST
2: EAST-TO-WEST
3: SOUTHEAST-TO-NORTHWEST
4: SOUTH-TO-NORTH
5: SOUTHWEST-TO-NORTHEAST
6: WEST-TO-EAST
7: NORTHWEST-TO-SOUTHEAST

Constants for the above values are provided in the isgui.def copybook.
If this property is not set, the default orientation is North to South.

Example
Display a standard window whose background color goes from gray to white

    working-storage section.
    77 window-handle usage handle of window.
    ...
    procedure division.
    ...
      display standard  window background-low 
              screen line 41 
              screen column 91 
              size 64.0 
              lines 55.8 
              cell width 10 
              cell height 10 
              label-offset 20 
              control font Default-Font
              gradient-color-1 rgb x#c0c0c0 
              gradient-color-2 rgb x#ffffff 
              gradient-orientation 0 
              resizable 
              modeless 
              title-bar 
              no wrap 
              title "Screen" 
              handle window-handle

The TRANSPARENT style, previously available only on label controls, is now supported on check-box, radio-button and frame controls as well. This allows the creation of user interfaces with gradients as background colors.
Attached you will find a sample program that applies all the different possible orientations

• gradient.cbl

1. How do I center a window on the desktop?
2. UNC Paths with Browser Control don't work. What can I do to solve it?
3. Does isCOBOL provide GUI design support?
4. How to copy data from the clipboard
5. iscobol.font.default and DEFAULT-FONT
6. What are the specific fonts that isCOBOL uses by default?
7. Can I have an entry-field that more or less works the same as Google Search? So I would like to be able to change the contents of the list while the user is typing...
8. Did you know isCOBOL has the Accordion control?
9. Does isCOBOL provide Graph modules to show statistics?
10. Is it possible to sort dates in a grid control?
11. Working with a grid control is there a way to get the double-click event?
12. How can I refresh the current contents of the paged grid?
13. How can I show an animated gif with isCOBOL?
14. Is there a way to show leading zeros when numeric data items are displayed on a character based screen?
15. Did you know isCOBOL supports a tip inside the entry-field and combo-box controls when they are empty?
16. Did you know how to customize color of the borders of some controls?
17. Is it possible to configure the color of the read-only entry-fields?
18. Did you know that you can protect a Grid from editing without coding any event?
19. How to detect if a computer has more than one monitor and use any of them?
20. How may I display a notification window that requires no user intervention?
21. Do isCOBOL GUI Screens have resizing capabilities?
22. How to add pages and GUI controls inside them to a tab control dynamically?
23. Can I modify the GUI controls of a Screen program from a called routine?
24. How to deploy bitmaps when running in application server
25. Modernizing your COBOL application by using isCOBOL Compiler code injection
26. How to use font-based icons in isCOBOL GUI programs
27. Modernize your character application
28. How to adjust program screens to different screen resolutions.