John,

It's for an application that has already been written by us. The app is an assembler debugger and we want to add the ability/option of displaying it's contents on the PC with something other than in a 3270 emulator. There's not a lot of real estate in a 3270 screen and there are limitations on how we display things. This is becoming more of an issue as we move beyond just debugging HLASM programs.

With regards to the multiple tabs/windows. The general idea behind the GUI on the PC would be that in a single debugging session, you can have a window open for displaying the code as you are stepping through it. Another window to display register contents, another one for variables, another one for displaying storage that your program will modify, another window for HELP, etc. If you have used Eclipse or Visual Studio, it's similar to something like that.


Frank


On 8/10/2012 12:31 PM, McKown, John wrote:
I'm still in a bit of a quandry as to what you want to accomplish. Is this for 
an application which you are writing, or one which is already written by 
someone else. If you are writing it, why use 3270? Why not just use HTTP or 
some other IP protocol?

Or why not just open multiple 3270 emulators? For your "GUIfied" 3270 with multiple tabs, 
do you mean that you logon to some application once, and it can somehow direct a 3270 data stream 
to a different 3270 "tab". The closest 3270 equivalent that I can think of is something 
that I know nothing about: 3270 hardware partitioning, which the 3290 had. I am not aware of any 
3270 emulator which does 3290 partition emulation. What I am envisioning that you want is something 
like ISPF, which can have multiple windows each doing some application. But you would want each 
ISPF window in a separate 3270 tab; and each to be running their application concurrently (true 
multitasking), updating their individual 3270 window.

I am also assuming that the application on the mainframe is yours, so that you could 
handle this. I'm having real problems thinging about the application. If I were writing 
it (and *had* to use 3270 protocol for some reason - why?), I would set it up to accept 
multiple 3270 connections and just run multiple 3270 emulators on the desktop. If it is a 
case of requiring a logon, then allow multiple logons. If necessary, the application 
could be written to have a "user controller" so that a single task could 
coordinate all the subtasks (one per 3270 connection) for a given user.

I think more information is necessary because 3270 applications are not really designed 
to be "multi window" at the 3270 hardware level.

--
John McKown
Systems Engineer IV
IT

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-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Frank Chu
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2012 10:53 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: GUIfication of tn3270 screens

Hello All,

I'm researching options in extending 3270 screens into a GUI
on the PC.
I'm know that 3270 screen scrapers are available but that's
not exactly
what we want.  We would like to be able to have say 1 PC session with
multiple windows/tabs opened, each showing something
different and each
being able to accept commands.  The GUI screens can be in a
browser or a
stand alone application (for exampled, Eclipse).

Any help would be appreciated,
Frank

--
Development Programmer
Cole Software LLC
www.colesoft.com
Phone : 540.456.6164  Fax : 540.456.6658
Email : [email protected]

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Cole Software LLC
www.colesoft.com
Phone : 540.456.6164  Fax : 540.456.6658
Email : [email protected]


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