Re: New COMMON Conference -- MIDRANGE-L

One significant difference between a green screen 5250 and almost all other user interfaces is that 5250 does screen-at-a-time processing while other interfaces do keystroke-at-a-time processing. Keystroke-at-a-time allows keystroke-by-keystroke editing and verifying, allows type-ahead fields, allows interactive dropdown boxes, and allows range testing.

All of these features yield some awesome benefits. Among them are:
-reduced operator training time
-better operator results
-improved end-to-end throughput
-better error checking
-added flexibility.
-easier customizing

One other difference is the event-based processing instead of screen-at-a-time processing. One can pop up a window to respond to an action in a field. If a user types in a zip code then the state and city can be auto-entered as the user is keying. If there is some unusual and uncommon data that is needed in a very few highly specialized instances then that can be easily done without having to try to cram it all into an already full 27 x 132 format.

In short, my experience is that converting green screen to GUI generally sucks. But designing the operation anew, taking into account the strengths of the GUI, will give a far better final experience for the customer.

On 8/16/2012 11:54 PM, Roger Harman wrote:

Best keyboard interface on a GUI that I've seen has to be Quicken.

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Paul Nelson
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2012 4:20 PM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: RE: New COMMON Conference

If I can do 95% of my data entry with the 10-key pad in a GUI screen. I
could live with that. I have yet to see a system that would permit that,
though.

I'm open to suggestions.

Paul Nelson
Cell 708-670-6978
Office 512-392-2577
nelsonp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Scott Klement
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2012 6:16 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: New COMMON Conference

Paul,

If your message is to be believed, then we'd be able to look at all of the
businesses around and note that everyone is using IBM i for everything, that
neither Windows nor mobile has had any sort of traction in the business
world, etc.

We all know that's not true.

As for the notion of "a real keyboard interface has to include field exit",
I think you're out of your mind. No keyboard has had a real field exit key
in 20 years. We typically map something like the "enter"
or "control" key to it, and that can be done in any application on any
platform. (Well, maybe not touch screen, but... any platform that has an
actual keyboard.)

You seem to be implying that a "fancy payroll program" is terrible becuase
of the poor keying, but when you write a green screen one, it's more
efficient. And you're probably right. But, what if _you_ had written the
GUI one, wouldn't it also be efficient?

There's no law requiring you to switch between a mouse and a keyboard (which
is what kills the keying speed in a GUI application) for data entry in GUI.
Someone like you who knows what's required to make keying work fast could,
surely, write one just as efficient for data entry in a GUI environment? I
know I could.

But, I think overall, you're missing the point. I've seen this happen
thousands of times: It doesn't matter how good your product is, your
screens are, etc. Someone important gets the idea that it's legacy crap,
and replaces it with a "modern" package, and you're out of a job.
I see this all the friggin' time. If you want to stop the bleeding, you
need to invest in something that doesn't look archaic. otherwise, some day
your users are going to take the same attitude that Jerry's did... that IBM
i is legacy cruft, and that Windows is modern. It's complete BS, you can do
GUI just as nicely on IBM i. (Better in some
cases!) But, as long as the programmers keep giving you legacy cruft,
you're going to associate that with this platform.

-SK

On 8/16/2012 5:31 PM, Paul Nelson wrote:

Scott,

Have you successfully enabled the field exit key in a GUI screen format?
Until we have that capability out of the box with no programming, I'll

still

espouse the green screen.

In fairness, the only GUI software I've seen that has a "real
keyboard" is from Look Software, but that was a telnet connection
under the covers. The cool part was the ability to toggle between green

and GUI.

I don't know if Look Software carried the keyboard mapping over to
their

web

interface.

Many of my clients are using software from Computer Guidance Corp. in
Phoenix. They had the Look Software product at one time, but for some

reason

they were "forced" by IBM to go the web interface route.

The result is software that looks pretty, but if you're sitting in a
job trailer 200 miles from the office, a Client Access telnet session
beats

the

heck out of a web interface.

I have written a green screen program to enable those users to do
higher speed data entry into the same files as the fancy payroll entry

program.

Paul Nelson
Cell 708-670-6978
Office 512-392-2577
nelsonp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

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