Re: New COMMON Conference -- MIDRANGE-L

Well said Booth! I could not agree more. As a system admin, give me a green screen every time, but as a user, a well designed GUI interface can be significantly more efficient if the designer is keeping in mind the time it takes to move your hand from the keyboard to the mouse and back. The designer has the power to create screens that do not require a mouse for hard data entry (such as your time sheets, etc) but offer contextual help and error processing when something is amiss.

I liken the change in block mode (5250/3270) screen design to character/event mode (usually GUI today) screen design to the same process as moving from procedural programming to object oriented design and construction. It's an unusually difficult thing for some of us older guys to get our heads around, but once you can make the transition the process can be more efficient and more fun since most of the limitations you worked under with procedural/block mode have been removed. Sure you have nearly no control over the user, but that's part of the process.

Jim Oberholtzer
Chief Technical Architect
Agile Technology Architects

On 8/17/2012 12:13 AM, Booth Martin wrote:

One significant difference between a green screen 5250 and almost all
other user interfaces is that 5250 does screen-at-a-time processing
while other interfaces do keystroke-at-a-time processing.
Keystroke-at-a-time allows keystroke-by-keystroke editing and verifying,
allows type-ahead fields, allows interactive dropdown boxes, and allows
range testing.

All of these features yield some awesome benefits. Among them are:
-reduced operator training time
-better operator results
-improved end-to-end throughput
-better error checking
-added flexibility.
-easier customizing

One other difference is the event-based processing instead of
screen-at-a-time processing. One can pop up a window to respond to an
action in a field. If a user types in a zip code then the state and
city can be auto-entered as the user is keying. If there is some
unusual and uncommon data that is needed in a very few highly
specialized instances then that can be easily done without having to try
to cram it all into an already full 27 x 132 format.

In short, my experience is that converting green screen to GUI generally
sucks. But designing the operation anew, taking into account the
strengths of the GUI, will give a far better final experience for the
customer.

On 8/16/2012 11:54 PM, Roger Harman wrote:

> Best keyboard interface on a GUI that I've seen has to be Quicken.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Paul Nelson
> Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2012 4:20 PM
> To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
> Subject: RE: New COMMON Conference
>
> If I can do 95% of my data entry with the 10-key pad in a GUI screen. I
> could live with that. I have yet to see a system that would permit that,
> though.
>
> I'm open to suggestions.
>
> Paul Nelson
> Cell 708-670-6978
> Office 512-392-2577
> nelsonp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Scott Klement
> Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2012 6:16 PM
> To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
> Subject: Re: New COMMON Conference
>
> Paul,
>
> If your message is to be believed, then we'd be able to look at all of the
> businesses around and note that everyone is using IBM i for everything, that
> neither Windows nor mobile has had any sort of traction in the business
> world, etc.
>
> We all know that's not true.
>
> As for the notion of "a real keyboard interface has to include field exit",
> I think you're out of your mind. No keyboard has had a real field exit key
> in 20 years. We typically map something like the "enter"
> or "control" key to it, and that can be done in any application on any
> platform. (Well, maybe not touch screen, but... any platform that has an
> actual keyboard.)
>
> You seem to be implying that a "fancy payroll program" is terrible becuase
> of the poor keying, but when you write a green screen one, it's more
> efficient. And you're probably right. But, what if_you_ had written the
> GUI one, wouldn't it also be efficient?
>
> There's no law requiring you to switch between a mouse and a keyboard (which
> is what kills the keying speed in a GUI application) for data entry in GUI.
> Someone like you who knows what's required to make keying work fast could,
> surely, write one just as efficient for data entry in a GUI environment? I
> know I could.
>
> But, I think overall, you're missing the point. I've seen this happen
> thousands of times: It doesn't matter how good your product is, your
> screens are, etc. Someone important gets the idea that it's legacy crap,
> and replaces it with a "modern" package, and you're out of a job.
> I see this all the friggin' time. If you want to stop the bleeding, you
> need to invest in something that doesn't look archaic. otherwise, some day
> your users are going to take the same attitude that Jerry's did... that IBM
> i is legacy cruft, and that Windows is modern. It's complete BS, you can do
> GUI just as nicely on IBM i. (Better in some
> cases!) But, as long as the programmers keep giving you legacy cruft,
> you're going to associate that with this platform.
>
> -SK
>
>
>
> On 8/16/2012 5:31 PM, Paul Nelson wrote:

>> Scott,
>>
>> Have you successfully enabled the field exit key in a GUI screen format?
>> Until we have that capability out of the box with no programming, I'll

> still

>> espouse the green screen.
>>
>> In fairness, the only GUI software I've seen that has a "real
>> keyboard" is from Look Software, but that was a telnet connection
>> under the covers. The cool part was the ability to toggle between green

> and GUI.

>>
>> I don't know if Look Software carried the keyboard mapping over to
>> their

> web

>> interface.
>>
>> Many of my clients are using software from Computer Guidance Corp. in
>> Phoenix. They had the Look Software product at one time, but for some

> reason

>> they were "forced" by IBM to go the web interface route.
>>
>> The result is software that looks pretty, but if you're sitting in a
>> job trailer 200 miles from the office, a Client Access telnet session
>> beats

> the

>> heck out of a web interface.
>>
>> I have written a green screen program to enable those users to do
>> higher speed data entry into the same files as the fancy payroll entry

> program.

>>
>> Paul Nelson
>> Cell 708-670-6978
>> Office 512-392-2577
>> nelsonp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>

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-- Booth Martin 802-461-5349 http://www.martinvt.com
--