Re: webfacing and competing products

["Buck" <buck.calabro@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > And I will say it this way. I assert, i you are just putting
> > the same 24x80 from the (ex-)DSPF to a client - browser
> > or otherwise - you are screen-scraping.

Certainly a unique use of the words.  Those of us with a more traditional
lexicon use the words to mean 'transformed at run time.'  The point being
that there is some rules engine/screen identification that gets tweaked in
order to customise the GUI panel.  Vis a vis some DDS/comments that must be
tweaked in order to customise the GUI panel.  This can be the make or break
decision from a change management perspective - how many new things does one
need to manage?

> I would guess that, if you really wanted to, you could toss
> away the 5250 version of a program processed through PSC/400.

Yes.  PSC/400 creates a parallel RPG program: one with an API call instead
of EXFMT which gets the record format buffer.  The other end of the API is
the UI, which could be an RPG program with the original DSPF doing EXFMT, an
HTML generator, etc.  One can (and should?) discard the original RPG program
with the embedded DSPF and EXFMTs.  It's in the book.

> I'm pretty sure you cannot do that with Webfacing, but there's
>no requirement to have a 5250 emulator available.

Right and right.  WF doesn't touch the RPG at all.  In fact, the running RPG
program has no idea that it isn't talking to a workstation controller.
Unlike PSC/400, RPG passes the buffer off to workstation data management
instead of an API.  OS/400 then directs the buffer either to a 5250 session
or to the servlet engine as required.

Newlook is a screen scraper in that it lives on the PC, reads the original
unaltered 5250 data stream and transforms it into GUI panels.  It needs no
source to operate on, and it doesn't change the RPG or DDS.  It is
non-traditional in the way it customises panels through a rules engine
rather than having to recognise each screen individually.  It also offers
hooks into various Windows applications so one can display one's phone bill
as an Excel spreadsheet or use ODBC to reach into another database.

What works for me may not work for you, and vice versa.
  --buck