Re: Do you still use *MSGF exclusively? -- MIDRANGE-L

Mark - I happen to think message files are a fantastic tool. Ananalogous technique in Windows apps is the use of resource DLLs thatcontain the strings to display on the screen. They are not as easy touse in a program or display file, say, as message files are. Theymain use of these things is for internationalization. As to errorhandling and notification, no system has the advanced capabilities ofthe System 38/AS400/iSeries/i5. We choose whether to take advantageof it. IBM certainly considers it important enough usually to includeextensive 2nd-level text, we have to look at our own situations. Buthow many times do I and others here ask for the 2nd-level text,because the main message is too much of a summary?


JMHO
Vern

At 06:59 AM 7/25/2006, you wrote:

>>however I am confused as to what these 500 messages are that you are
refering to. Are these to catch errors/miskeys etc. in the project you
are developing?

Hi all,
I am basically checking to make sure I am still in the grove with
*MSGF concept. I don't have much time to lurk anymore but I have gone
back and marked a good thread from 2005 that covers a lot of *MSGF ins
and outs. (so, no need to repeat that)
It has been a long time sind I have actually populated a *MSGF for a
whole app, so I asked the question. I mostly read (skim) messages
concerning the non 5250 delivery methods, CGI, whatever the topic is,
I have no preference. I found it hard to imagine that multilingual
apps are only done somewhat properly with *MSGF -thinking of year 2006
and forward.
I am near complete on a web app and found out late in the project that
sponsor would prefer *MSGF when at all possible. And if course, it is
very possible if we try hard enough.  Until this point, I had a
dynamic process that used one subroutine to formulate messages based
on context, variable in it's language (English, etc) , what was
instantiated at the time the error is found, current field position
and anything special or unique was passed in as the parm, simple stuff
like zip code range for a U.S. state. It is simple if you take it step
by step, nothing fancy, ex. online payment entry screen..
It is like night vs. day using a subroutine vs. *MSGF constructs, at
least to me it was. And I did not have quite 500 entries, but that was
a good round number to use. I cut & pasted everything via the command
line, pretty caveman. Since I am not a websphere AS expert (as an
example of one non 5250 delivery method), I was curious if (insert
platform here) or newer IBM tools relied upon *MSGF or seemed to
intend to, in the near term. Or, comments on a critical oversight in
newer dev platforms (such as WS/AS- WDSC) of not enough error facility
built in. I tried to stay generic in my question because it is really
not a WEB400 or RPG400 or BPCS or WDSC forum question, but a general
iSeries near-future "statement of direction" question for iSeries
folks in a multilingual world.

To summarize the entire question-- Do you find it easier these days to
control the error flow, expending minimal time on inventing the wheel,
for biz apps with your newer tools provided by IBM and others, for
multiple languages, and if so what technique or plug in or XXX are
*you* using? Because I would like to *check it out*.

--
Mark Villa
Summerville, SC
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