RE: Who's doing Web work on iSeries? (was: ASP on AS/400 Apache)

> From: Bob Cozzi (RPGIV)

I realize you're talking about WebFacing, but since PSC400 uses an HTML
interface, I'm interested in your reasoning, especially as to what
constitutes a show-stopper.


> Problems with the current WebFacing tools are:
> 1) All apps use the Interactive processing of the system.

PSC400 doesn't have this problem.  Unfortunately, the tradeoff is the fact
that it modifies the source code.  As I outlined in my previous post, it's
(currently) one or the other.


> 2) HTML is really not well suited for subfiles. To watch the screen
> blank, turn to white, and then repaint when you scroll a Webfaced
> "subfile" is not something my end-users would expect. I'm sure with
> custom controls, IBM could solve that issue, but the version I saw,
> wasn't using customer controls.

I'm not sure what you mean by this.  If you mean the screen being repainted
when a new HTML page is shown, that's pretty typical for any web
application.  We find the best way to avoid that issue is threefold: have a
textured background, have a small but eye-pleasing logo banner consistently
displayed on every page, and keep response time down to under a second.  In
those cases, nobody seems to mind the flash as the new page rolls down.

How do you get around this issue with CGI?


> So for regular file maintenance apps with a single panel/screen without
> subfile use, yes you can put a browser interface on your DDS source. And
> that's a great accomplishment for anyone to have pulled off!!!

Why thank you <grin>.  Our green screen emulation version looks like you did
put a browser interface on your DDS - in fact, it looks like a 5250 applet,
but without the applet overhead.  The web application look and feel, on the
other hand, is considerably nicer.

Joe Pluta
www.plutbrothers.com