Re: webfacing and competing products -- MIDRANGE-L

David,

I think the issue is that I am pushing the paradigm around a little. I have
recently seen the screen shots for a ~new~ product from a famous vendor we
all know and love. No 5250 data stream involved technically - as far as we
have been told, but a great HTML green screen clone. This to me is simply a
screen scrape from the users perspective... I know what screen scraping
means from a technical perspective. But I think if you are going to present
a 24x80 in a browser, you can only claim you have scraped the screen -
nothing more.

This is how I see it.

1) Screen scraping..
Presents the 24x80 (or 27x132) in a non-terminal emulator GUI-able client,
with some mouse usability.

2) Refacing..
Converts the original 24x80 (or 27x132) to true GUI with full GUI
functionality.

2a) Webfacing
i. Same as 2 with IP and in a browser.
ii. IBM name for #1

Most products provide #1, some products get part way to #2, some products
provide full #2.

And there is a completely different conversation on whether or not the
products that do NOT "technically" screen scrape even reach true GUI. Or
maybe I am being confused by the myriad of non-graphical designers out
there. Because that is a bigger gripe for me than whether or not you are
screen scraping....

Trevor

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Gibbs"

> "trevor perry" <trevorp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
> message news:001701c3344f$2da7d3a0$61794664@xxxxxxx
> > However, I am making the assertion that if the HTML page (for example)
is
> > simply the same 24x80 that you had in the original green screen - no
> matter
> > how you got there (java, server, batch, etc..) then you have just
scraped
> > the screen.
>
> I understand what you are saying ... and I disagree with your assertion.
> "Scraping" means that you are taking something off of a surface ... with
> traditional screen scraping products, that's exactly what you are doing
...
> you are taking the data off a real screen representation and transforming
> it's presentation.
>
> With webfacing products you are not simply changing the presentation of
> another display ... you are presenting the data in another way entirely.
>
> > I was not picking on anyone in particular - just commenting on
> > the fact that we have all this whizbang new technologies called
"refacing"
> > or "webfacing", but they all seem to look remarkably like the original
> green
> > screen.
>
> But they do not have to ... Webfacing seems to be rather restricted in how
> much modification is allowed, but I'm pretty sure that Joe's product gives
> you free reign to alter the display.  The fact that the interface started
> out as a 5250 screen, doesn't mean it has to remain a 5250 screen.  And,
as
> Joe pointed out, the back end to his product does not need to remain a
> iSeries native program.
>
> david