RE: New COMMON Conference

Doesn't this all come down to the right tool for the job? Lets face
some facts here. The real down side of the green screen is that it
doesn't give you enough room. Why do I like using desktop or web
interfaces? Because I can give the user so much more information right
there on the screen in a very flexible manner. I'm not bound by 80 or
even 132 columns and 24 to 27 rows. I am not bound by 8 colors. I can
use whitespace to draw a user's attention to something. I can make a
desktop or webapp notify a user without doing full refreshes when things
happen in the database. The experience is more flexible, and overall it
IS BETTER! Are there special cases where the green screen is quick for
data entry? Sure, but I don't think that it does anything that .Net or
other native and web apps can do. Its just a matter a optimizing the
user experience to what they are trying to accomplish. And if I can
enter all my information in 1 screen and not 2, 3, or more screens and
give instantaneous feedback to the user on data validation as they enter
it. Can give them suggested values as they type. The more I type and
think about it the more I think that the screen screen is a really
crappy interface to use in light of what we have available to us today.


Thank You
Bryce Martin
National Ticket Company
570-672-2900 ext. 226


-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Paul Nelson
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2012 6:31 PM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: RE: New COMMON Conference

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

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Scott Klement
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2012 4:59 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: New COMMON Conference

Don,

You're absolutely right. The problem, in many cases, has nothing to do
with how functional 5250 screens are. It has to do entirely with how
the users perceive them.

That's not true 100%, of course. There are places where pictures,
graphs, etc, are useful in business, and having a GUI screen makes those
work much better.

However, there are many circumstances ("key 150 time cards") where it
doesn't matter whether it's green screen or GUI from a functional
perspective. But, to the user's perception, it makes all the difference
in the world. And I haven't found any way to combat that perception,
aside from providing GUI, modern, display interfaces.


On 8/16/2012 4:49 PM, Don wrote:

No Paul, you supposed to go GUI...it's politically correct, it looks
nice for the simple minds in marketing, it's what everybody wants,
it's what M$ has overmarketed the world to believe is what's supposed
to be the standard....oh and btw, you'll probably have to hire an
additional person

or

two because it may be slower than your green screen if you're going to

make

that large payroll in time... :)

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