Graphical Enablement

1. Graphical Enablement • In this presentation… • What is graphical enablement? • Introduction to newlook dialogs and tools used to graphical enable System i screens, including: • Rules • Identify • Designer • newlook Inspector tool • Run-time information

2. Graphical Enablement • What is graphical enablement? • Graphical enablement refers to the generation of newlook screens by: • replacing "green screen" elements with graphical equivalents • adding new graphical items (overrides) to enhance the newlook generated interface. • Successful graphical enablement requires the use of the following newlook tools: Settings, Identify, Designer, Macro Editor and Rules. Note: This presentation only covers Identify, Designer and Rules. Settings and the Macro Editor are covered in other sessions.

3. Graphical Enablement • Identify • newlook’s development tool for overriding default recognition of System i screen information. • Designer • newlook’s development tool for designing the look and feel of individual screens. Also used in conjunction with the Macro Editor to add new functionality to the underlying System i screens. • Rules • Rules are primarily filter based mechanisms designed to provide system-wide changes to the newlook generated interface. • Inspector • Displays Run-time information of the properties within the newlook object model • Also displays custom variable values

4. Graphical Enablement - Identify • Identify • Identify allows you to override default recognition of the 5250 data stream. • Identify is used to: • Set the screen ID (key). The screen ID is a special category used to identify one or more System i screens. • Create Overrides (category changes). You can change a screen element’s category, add text or visual clues to assist recognition.

5. Graphical Enablement – Identify • Identify based overrides: • Are applied instantly to a matching screen, and occur prior to UI generation. • Are stored in the shared .sid file. • Edit the image of the System i screen, not the underlying source code. • May apply to one or more screens. Numerous overrides may apply to one screen.

6. Graphical Enablement - Identify • Screen ID • Key to recognition. • newlook automatically selects a default screen ID based on IBM’s CUA standards. This screen ID needs to be reviewed to ensure it meets your requirements of single or multiple screen overrides. • Choice of screen ID determines whether overrides or changes apply to one or multiple screens. • The screen ID is not a category. Screen ID highlighted in white

7. Graphical Enablement - Identify • Screen ID (cont’d) • Very important concept to understand. When making design based changes using newlook Designer and Identify, you should first check the screen ID. • Why check your screen ID first? • Scenario 1 - SPECIFIC OVERRIDE: You want to make a change to a specific screen. You need to choose a screen ID unique to that particular screen. If your screen ID happens to match multiple screens, then the change you want to apply to a single screen will automatically apply to others as well. • Scenario 2 - GENERIC OVERIDE: You want to make a change that affects 5 screens. You can review the screens in question and select a screen ID common to all. Then it is simply a matter of making the required change on one screen. The remaining screens will be updated automatically. • Screen IDs are very useful and can save you time when making changes. However you must be careful in screen ID selection to ensure changes don’t get applied to incorrect screens.

8. Graphical Enablement - Identify • Screen ID (cont’d) • Example of 2 different System i screens with the same default assigned screen ID. • Changes made to either of these screens will automatically apply to the other.

9. Graphical Enablement - Identify • Screen ID (cont’d) • How does newlook assign screen IDs? • They are based on a combination of IBMs CUA design guidelines and newlook settings. • newlook searches the top of the System i screen for unique pneumonic programming ID standards used by your System i developers. • Each and every element that appears in a host screen is a Screen ID candidate. You may select one or more elements as Screen IDs. • What do we recommend for specific overrides? • Screen-specific program pneumonic • Screen Title • Tip:Screen IDs can consist of multiple fields, blank spaces and attribute bytes. Note: For a screen ID to match screens, they have to have identical characters, and match the same row/column position.

10. Graphical Enablement - Identify • Categories • Select fields/characters by • Double-clicking • Right-clicking • Drag a selection window • Set category • Right click menu • Properties window (F4)

11. Graphical Enablement – Saving Overrides • Saving Overrides • General • Specify name • Summary • Change management info • Options • Match multiple screens • Locale • Specify regional info • Save dialogue is identicalfor Identify & Designer • Overrides created in Identify can be accessed in Designer, and vice versa

12. Graphical Enablement - Designer • Designer • newlook's fully-functional graphical editor. Designer is primarily used to customize the look and feel of newlook generated screens or GUI. • Customization may include anything from simple changes such as adding a background image or watermark, through to comprehensive re-designs such as splitting screens into two.

13. Graphical Enablement - Designer • Designer • Design new forms. • Assign macros created in the Macro Editor • Designer overrides are applied after GUI generation. • Designer overrides are stored in the shared.sid file.

14. Graphical Enablement - Designer • Visual development tool • Add controls • Images • Text boxes • Labels • Command buttons • New/existing controls • Modify properties (F4) • Alignment tool • Resize • 3D ordering • Object orientated development • Events • OnClick • OnChange etc. • Macros are attached to events • Perform a series of actions. • Actions • Expressions • Functions

15. Graphical Enablement - Rules • Rules • Rules are primarily filter based mechanisms designed to provide system-wide changes to the newlook generated interface. • By default, newlook comes with a number of built in rules based on IBMs CUA guidelines. They are used to interpret System i screen elements prior to generation of the GUI. • Rules also provide a number of administrative related features, such as configuration of newlook Standard Edition users' access rights plus specification of shared and local sid files, also known as the Design Repository.

16. Graphical Enablement - Rules • Global pattern recognition • General • Policies • Categories • Filters • Subfiles • Check Fields • Borders • Combo fields

17. Graphical Enablement - Rules • General tab • Customize the caption displayed in the title bar. • Add your own customized Help file. • Merge repositories.

18. Graphical Enablement - Rules • Policies tab • Configure access rights for Standard Edition (SE) users, including: • Functionality: • Macro Editor • License wizard • SE user settings: • Display • General settings

19. Graphical Enablement - Rules • Categories tab • Use Category rules to specify which categories you want newlook to use when generating the graphical interface, e.g. check boxes, grids and option buttons etc. • Recognition • Whether newlook recognizes the control category • Display • Whether newlook displays fields of that category on the GUI.

20. Graphical Enablement - Rules • Filters tab • In terms of newlook, a filter is a generic pattern or rule based mechanism designed to provide system wide dynamic overrides. • Filters instruct newlook how to interpret the incoming 5250 data stream prior to generating the newlook UI. • Pattern recognition • Perform actions • Replace text • Identify category • Override default categories • Add visual hints

21. Graphical Enablement - Rules • Search Properties (Filters) • Match string • Type of match • Exact • Portion • Occurrences • Once per screen • Many time per screen but once per field • Many times

22. Graphical Enablement - Rules • Action Properties (Filters) • Replace string • Text • Portion • Identify category • This field • The one after this field • The one before this field

23. Graphical Enablement - Rules • Subfiles • System i or AS/400 name given to a table or grid of information. • Subfile markers • Used to generate grids • Position of the end of the subfile data.

24. Graphical Enablement - Rules • Check Fields • Choices • The combinations of On/Off states for check boxes. • Default choice • Explicit choice? • Does not require both values on System i screen.

25. Graphical Enablement - Rules • Borders • Character Sets • Borders which generate popup windows. • 8 character strings.

26. Graphical Enablement - Rules • Combo fields • Choices • Smart choice filtering. • Date format filtering. • Numeric range filtering. **These options exclude descriptive choice information • Command lines • Maximum lines for a command combo field.

27. Graphical Enablement - Run-time information • Dynamic engine data • Inspect variables • Inspector • Inspector displays values of object properties in the newlookobject model, and variablesthat have been created using newlook. • Run-time memory • Variables • Properties • App • Form • System • Clipboard

28. Graphical Enablement - Run-time information • Display properties • Recognition engine • Screen information • Screen title • Rules • Filters

29. Summary • Graphical enablement is used to describe the process of converting a traditional “green screen” working environment into graphically rich, Windows-based UI. • newlook will automatically generate the newlook UI based on IBMs CUA design guidelines, however, the more your application differs from these IBM standards, the more you will need to use newlook’s development tools to assist recognition. • Other reasons for using newlook’s development tools include, interface design, application extension and integration. • newlook development tools include: Settings, Identify, Designer, Rules and the Inspector. • To view System i screen via the newlook desktop or web interface, you are first required to establish a connection.

30. Workshop 3 newlook 8 Training