RE: [WEB400] Web UI design vs 5250 UI design

["Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There is an answer.  It's a staged approach:


1. Separate UI and business logic

I prefer modifying the code to write to a data queue, because it's cleaner
in the long run.  You could probably use a screen scraper as well, but then
you incur the interactive tax.

2. Decide on a communication medium between the storefront and the legacy

A good choice here is an XML document.  When ready to enter the order, the
storefront builds an XML document with all the order information and sends
it to an agent.  The agent then responds with an XML document indicating
success or detailing the errors.

3. Write a macro engine that converts the XML document to screen entry.

The agent decodes the order document and walks through the appropriate
screens.  This is why I really like the data queue approach rather than
screen scraping, because at this point you pretty much just deal with fields
and buffers.


Anyway, that's what we're doing over at PBD these days.

Joe Pluta
www.plutabrothers.com


> -----Original Message-----
> From: web400-admin@midrange.com [mailto:web400-admin@midrange.com]On
> Behalf Of Buck Calabro
> Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2001 11:26 AM
> To: web400@midrange.com
> Subject: [WEB400] Web UI design vs 5250 UI design
>
>
> John P wrote:
>
> >I am thinking of a simple Order Entry type scenario
> >where (in 5250 land) I might create the Order
> >Header, then from subsequent screens write the details,
> >then ask for order confirmation and either commit or
> >rollback the transactions.  Since my mental model
> >works that way for 5250, I had seen no reason to use a
> >different model for CGI.
>
> We're looking to "webify" our Synon applications, and are finding that all
> the options that leave the 5250 data entry sequence as-is leave
> something to
> be desired.  In other words, having to walk through 7 "screens"
> is just not
> "GUI-ish."  It looks screen scraped, even though it might be RPG-CGI,
> WebFaced or e-deployed.  The tech-savvy people we show this to all groan
> when they see it.
>
> More fashionable (word chosen with care) is the shopping cart, a la
> amazon.com, or a single panel, with everything on it, a la innumerable web
> registration pages.  Please remember that *I* do not think
> there's anything
> wrong with the traditional multi-screen data entry.  The problem
> is that our
> prospective customers now want sizzle with their steak; they want what's
> fashionable.  And right now, stateless panels are The Thing.
>
> Buck
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