Re: Pete's web5250 was->Re: Business Developers was ->Re: IBM Gives RPG Devotees Their Own Café

[Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen <ravn@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Nathan Andelin skrev:
> > From: Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen
> > I am unfamiliar with the term "virtual terminal interface".
> > Is it a telnet server or a completely different beast?
> >     
>
>
> I don't think very many developers know much about the virtual terminal interface.  IBM hasn't published much information about it.  There's some documentation at the IBM i Information Center.  It's the interface that many of the screen-scraper vendors use.  It provides for a native IBM i middleware server in between a green-screen application and whatever client is on the other end of the conversation.
>
> Your server in the middle therefore has the opportunity to transform the 5250 data stream to some other format.
>   

It sounds to me like it is a part of the WebFacing system, which I have 
understood is implemented in this way.

I found "Virtual Terminal APIs" which sounds like it is what you describe.

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/iseries/v5r3/index.jsp?topic=/apis/wfenvapi.htm

It appears that there is an automatic sign-on mechanism in QTVOPNVT 
which is nice, but it appears there is not a mechanism for breaking the 
27x132 character limit.  Pity, that is in my mind the most crippeling 
feature of the green screen.

From a quick browse I could not see any reason to use this API as 
opposed to just creating a telnet connection (which is much simpler and 
not dependent on an API).  Pity :(