HostAnalyzer

see also HostConnector, WebVIew

Description

The HostAnalyzer program is a tool that helps you to build an information base describing transaction screens, and host definitions.  This information is saved in the Application.xml file for each application and is then used by HostConnector to support an XML host transaction interface. 

In the screenshot above you can see the main features of HostAnalyzer.  On the left there is a tree that displays the collections and elements within the collections.  Underneath that is an item definition pane that displays details of the selected item.  On the right is an instance of the ActiveUTS control that provides a terminal screen for connecting to your host.

Note that there is a splitter bar so you can change the window pane visibility.  You can also see that there are multiple toolbars with functions that are pertinent to the individual panes.

Clicking on a tree entry (as UserID above) displays the item properties and also displays the original saved screen data on the terminal screen pane (the first time you create a screen you must be connected to the host).

Clicking on Identifiers under a screen item on the tree pane displays all the identifiers from the identifiers collection on the terminal screen. 

Clicking on an individual field or identifier in the tree highlights the defined area on the terminal screen, just to help you verify where it is visually.

In summary, the flow is as follows:

• Select Applications in the tree view
• Add a new Application by clicking on the toolbar or using the Add menu
• Select the terminal screen and click on Connect in the toolbar, fill in the fields and connect to your host
• Enter transactions in the terminal screen until you reach a screen you wish to include
• For each of these screens you will:

• display the host screen data
• click Save Screen to save the screen data
• click Create Screen Fields to create a list of all fields
• optionally customize the screen fields
• create identifiers for the screen

A more detailed description is given below.

Using HostAnalyzer

Starting with an empty tree and you are about to create screen maps that identify the transaction screens used in your application.  First you need to add an Application and give it a name.  Then you can click on the + button on the toolbar to create a new screen schema and add fields but, to start with, it is more intuitive to connect the terminal screen control to your host and pull down a live transaction screen.  Go to the terminal screen toolbar, click on Connect and enter a valid terminal name and host definition, then click on Connect.  When you are connected enter your transaction codes etc to display the required screen, using the terminal screen as a straightforward emulator.

Now click on Create Screen Fields in the Item Properties pane.  This creates a new screen collection of field definitions that map to each of the terminal screen fields, as defined by the host.  Remember that this is only a starting point.  You can add, remove or modify fields later.  At the same time it is very useful to save the screen data by clicking on Save Screen.  This simply saves the screen content and is very handy for displaying a recognizable screen when you click on a screen entry in the tree.  Remember that this data is actually irrelevant for the runtime screen mapping (the field definitions are important then) but useful in this offline mode of preparing the screen maps.

This new screen map is called ScreenMap2 or something similar.  Click on the entry in the tree pane and you will see the default assigned properties in the pane below.  You can change any of the properties (you can click on Apply Changes in the toolbar for the changes to take effect but the changes will be saved when you move to another tree item).  So, change the screen map name to something more meaningful.  In the tree you can expand your newly named screen and see the Identifiers and Fields collections.  The Fields collection contains all the fields from the host screen, created by HostAnalyzer but the Identifiers collection is empty.  This is because only you know what is significant about this screen that can be used to identify it uniquely.

To create one or more Identifiers go to the terminal window and drag select some significant text.  Then click on Add Identifier in the terminal toolbar.  Notice that a new identifier has been created in the tree.  Click on that entry and examine the properties below.  The row, column, length and text  have all been captured from the selected screen text.  Again, you can always make changes to the properties and use Apply Changes.  Repeat as many times as you need to uniquely identify the screen.

You can always create a new field or a new identifier manually, by selecting Fields or Identifiers under a screen map on the tree and clicking on Add.  You can then edit the properties to specify the field position, contents etc.

Screen Properties Pane

At runtime the WebView web receives host screens as XML content from the HostConnector service and then decides how to transform the XML into HTML for display on the browser.  The transformation decision is dependent upon the configured screen properties, and the algorithm is like this:

• If the host response screen is recognized (triggered by the identifiers) then:
  • if an ASP web page is configured for this screen then that ASP page is called
  • if an XSLT document is configured for this screen then that XSLT is used to transform to HTML
• If the screen is not recognized or has no configured ASP or XSLT then a default XSLT document is used to transform the XML data to an HTML rendering of the host screen

 

Item	Description
Screen Name	The screen name.
Create screen fields	Create collection of screen fields from the terminal screen
Only generate...	If this is checked when "Create screen fields" is clicked, all protected fields are ignored
XSLT document	Optionally specify an XSL transform document to  be used in transforming the XML to HTML at runtime
Web Page	A web page to be used in generating web output at runtime.