RE: Help Systems' email about AFP support discontinued at 7.3 - not true ! - or is it ?

In the words of my kids. Huh ? :-)

If you're talking about iForms, the software can read a spool file and generate a new PDF document or output a new spool file for printing. Or you can generate a new PDF or spool file from a database driven document instead and eliminate RPG or COBOL altogether.

If you're talking about using an existing spool file for a form input why can't that existing spool file be generated from RPG or COBOL ?

It's actually quite easy to generate a spool file and then generate the form document from a CL command called from the same program or use an output queue monitor perhaps.

If there's something you were trying to articulate please clarify.

Regards,


Richard Schoen
Director of Document Management
e. richard.schoen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
p. 952.486.6802
w. helpsystems.com


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message: 5
date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 14:49:30 -0500
from: "Mark Murphy/STAR BASE Consulting Inc."
<mmurphy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
subject: RE: Help Systems' email about AFP support discontinued at 7.3
- not true ! - or is it ?

Seems fair, except that existing spool file can't be generated from an RPG or COBOL program.

Mark Murphy
Atlas Data Systems
mmurphy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


-----Richard Schoen <Richard.Schoen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: -----
To: "midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx" <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Richard Schoen <Richard.Schoen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 12/08/2016 11:47AM
Subject: RE: Help Systems' email about AFP support discontinued at 7.3 - not true ! - or is it ?


If you're in the over 50 crowd (which is where I reside) and that's all you have to work with the answer may be yes, but not if you're looking to modernize.

Let's get together in a room with a bunch of younger types and do a comparison of technologies:

-You show users how to create AFP and then write an individual RPG program for each form document.

-I will show them how to visually design a form in minutes and then test interactively using an existing spool file or database with no RPG programming. And to boot how to quickly re-purpose an existing AFP form within an hour.

To be fair I was the original architect of iForms so I'm a bit biased, but the above form modernization challenge stands.

Regards,


Richard Schoen
Director of Document Management
e. richard.schoen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
p. 952.486.6802
w. helpsystems.com

But AFP *IS* an excellent "little more than bare iron" solution for generating PDFs from RPG.
--
JHHL