Nathan,
Your understanding of WSG is correct, but it was possible to change how it
worked by putting additional HTML and JAVASCRIPT in the datastream. So, for
instance, I got rid of the heading AS/400 Workstation Gateway which wasted a
lot of space, changed the background and text colours, enabled the function
keys so that they worked as in 5250 mode (with one exception). I altered
the text on the buttons, enabled "ONMOUSOVER", "OndblClick", "OnClick" and
"onmouseout", and allowed a much longer line length than the 80/132 norm for
5250. I set "focus", displayed images, etc.
I used WSG because it was there and the learning curve was relatively
short. However, there were limitations about how much HTML you could send
(although I never quite worked out exactly what these were) and response
times were poor (although nothing like as bad as IBM predicted). In
addition, the way that I develop applications means that, as most of an
application definition is stored as metadata in my database and very little
is defined in new program code, all applications work in exactly the same
way. In fact the development and operational environments use exactly the
same program code as, mostly, no new programs are created when a new
application is built. This meant that I could spend more time on the
workings and I created a single datastream into which I inserted 5250
attributes, PCL 5 code for printing or HTML/Javascript as appropriate. My
product builds all of these dynamically. So when you see what appears to be
a 5250 subfile displayed, it is in fact one field of 80 characters (or more)
by ten lines which does not have 5250 attributes defined in DDS - these are
inserted by my product.
I missed the web5250 thread, probably because I had my head down in CGIDEV -
I will have a look.
I am not trying to write my own version of WSG as I don't believe that it is
a viable approach except in the short term. In addition, I made a rule a
long time ago that, except in the most extreme circumstances, I would never
try and go under the covers of an operating system. My reason was that, if
you do, you will have problems when a vew version is released. I do not
believe that with OS/400 there can be any justification for doing this. It
does all you need. If you make fundamental changes to the way things are
done (and to this I plead guilty) these must be done outside the OS.
What I am doing, and have been doing for some years, is to try and create a
better mousetrap. I believe that developers, because of the methods
available to them, serve users very badly. It seems to me that
programmers/developers spend far too much of their time reinventing the
wheel and achieving less than perfect results. Surely, programming is the
most inefficient process ever devised by mankind in any field of human
endeavour. It is fine for masochists (and we may both be masochists!) but
it is not productive, not even if you are the best programmer in the world.
I can achieve dramatic improvements in developer productivity and
scaleability by abolishing most new program creation (whether hand coded or
generated) as I define most of an application as metadata in my database.
Yet I cannot persuade people that programming in an unnecessary evil, even
though when we learn, no one shuts down our brain, analyses the problem,
designs a solution, reprograms our brain, tests the result and starts it up
again. If our brains worked liked that, we would know nothing. If we used
an intelligent database, we would be way ahead of where we are today and be
able to keep up with users' ever evolving real world as it changed.
Because of the limitations of WSG and its lack of IBM support, I am now
trying to create a better interface. This could be used by anyone in due
course. As yet, I don't see how to use it without some work - I don't
expect it to be a magic wand. But I hope that it will allow the
construction of applications that are automatically web enabled without any
work for the web and without writing any HTML or Javascript.
If you have a particular problem for which you want a generic solution,
please tell what it is. I may not be able to help, but it might influence
how I implement my ideas and might help to solve the problem.
Best wishes
Rob
2009/1/7 Nathan Andelin <nandelin@xxxxxxxxx>
Rob wrote:
With AS/400 Workstation Gateway, which I have modified quite a lot,
all my applications work over the internet and already generate HTML
and Javascript. But AS/400 WSG is no longer supported and I have to
find a new way of handling the GUI side.
Rob,
I was aware that IBM discontinued support for Workstation Gateway, but was
UNAWARE that it could be modified. I had the idea (perhaps erroneous) that
WSG mapped 5250 data streams to HTML - but did it transparently - without
programmer control. Can you clarify that? Where were you when the web-5250
topic was discussed on this list - just before Christmas?
Are you planning on writing your own version of Workstation Gateway, using
CGIDEV2?
Nathan.
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