Re: 5250 to Web Interface / Application Modernization

Very good advise, Web is a different tool.  Avoid "html that acts as
5250" , it is worst than real 5250.  Replace function keys. Split
programs that do a lot of things, put the common parts in service programs.

Start small.

On 4/5/19 1:35 PM, Booth Martin wrote:

Based on experiences, would it be helpful to recognize you are going
from a screen-at-a-time design structure to a key-at-a-time
structure?  Way down, at the very root of your designs, many things
can, and probably should, change.

"... Existing screens are packed with information, and a lot of
different function keys in use" screams out at me that replacing 5250
with html-that-acts-like-5250 is going to bite you at every turn. With
today's design structures that "packed with... different function
keys..." scenario becomes an anchor that will drown you in user
training, inconsistency, and glitchy stuff outside of your control.

What I have done, and realize from hind sight was much easier to
effectuate, was a 3-step approach.  First, since I had no real
experience with what I wanted to do, i chose a marginal but defined
chunk of a minor but important application and decided to see where
that led me.  It was awkward, awful, and frankly, pretty pathetic. 
But it did work.  3 versions of that and I felt like a champ and the
occasional user comment was energizing.  So I took another chunk, and
it was better.  Not good, but better. I repeated until there were no
more chunks to tear off.

Then, step 2: I looked at what was left to be done and realized a
fairly small set of features remained undone.  It went surprisingly
well and user response was "Do X-tea-X next!".

Step 3 was to chew up through the food chain, from minor to
significant, leaving the important applications to last, when I was
best prepared.  It all worked, and in a time frame consistent with
what other solutions were actually doing. All without changes of
personnel, loss of business rules, or heavy conversion software costs.

RPG, the IWS wizard, web services, HTML, css, and JavaScript gives you
a design structure that is modern, sub-second, easily maintained, and
requires minimal user training.

On 4/5/2019 10:13 AM, Kirk Yates wrote:

Looking for recommendations on products to help modernize an existing
in-house application running on Power 8 with 5250 interface (RPG &
DDS) to web browser interface.

Existing screens are packed with information, and a lot of different
function keys in use.

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