QTerm 7.0

The 7.0 version of QTerm brings a new look and easily accessible function panels which can be permanently displayed (pinned) or can be automatically hidden and only displayed when moused over. Mutiple frame windows are also supported with one or more terminal windows in each frame. This allows you to easily take advantage of multiple monitors.

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WebView

see also HostConnector, HostAnalyzer

  

Description

WebView is a product from Quickware that exposes mainframe hosted transactions to web browser users without requiring any changes to the mainframe software.

Terminal emulators like QTerm provide the power user with the most functional direct method of interfacing with a host but there are times when you may wish to present your host data in a manner that casual users find more acceptable.  Such as:

  • Opening up information to the public
  • Opening up information to another department
  • Providing summary information to management

The obvious choice is to target a web browser, since millions of people are already comfortable with using a browser to access all kinds of information.  

On a web server, the WebView active server pages (ASP) access host data via the HostConnector service, which delivers host screens in XML format.  The ASP pages then use the XML field data to generate HTML for sending to web browser clients.

"Green Screen" Mode

The simplest implementation involves installing WebView and configuring the host details (address  etc). If users are to be authenticated and assigned specific terminal names then that configuration must also be done. Users can then access host screens in 'green screen' mode where the rendered html looks exactly like a terminal screen.

Host transaction shown in the QTermUTS emulator

 

Host transaction shown in a browser (green screen mode)

 

Re-facing Transactions

Optionally, you can choose to re-face one or more transaction screens to provide a more intuitive interface for your users.  Here is an example of taking a host screen and using HostAnalyzer to generate an ASP page for it, specifying the usage of standard text boxes plus drop down lists, checkboxes and radio buttons.  An html editor was used after that simply to position items and add cosmetic touches such as color and font.

Re-faced host transaction shown in a browser

 

There are two main aspects to WebView; design time and run time.  At design time you use the HostAnalyzer program to build up screen definitions from host transaction screens.  At run time you deploy the Quickware provided ASP pages to manage the transaction flow (or you can develop your own ASP pages, normally using generated web pages as a starting point).

The screen definitions are the essential information base that is at the core of WebView.  They are created and managed by the HostAnalyzer program and are implemented as a set of XML collections.  This means that the low level screen scraping operations are now abstracted to an object-oriented level (you can still use the direct screen scraping APIs, in conjunction or standalone).  

HostAnalyzer allows you to see the real host screens by embedding an instance of the  ActiveUTS/ActiveT27 control.  Then you can easily create screen definitions and web pages.

Screen definitions describe host transaction screens as seen at a terminal.  These Screen definitions comprise identifying fields (Identifiers), data fields (Fields) and tables; all in an XML document.