Re: Help Systems' email about AFP support discontinued at 7.3 - not true

Richard,

1) The title of the email is misleading.

2) The title was not a simple typo, since the graphic also contains what may be perceived as the same error.

-mark

On 12/8/2016 1:19 PM, Richard Schoen wrote:

I re-read the marketing email and while the title is catchy, the next line mentioned AFP utilities and the rest of the email is accurate and marketing-like as it should be.

Sorry we offended you Vern but customers are asking us for valid AFP replacements because they don't see it as a future technology because of no support from Ricoh.

We go by what customers are telling us which is they need to modernize their form processes.

In fact from our previous discussions your PNG/GIF handling could have easily been dealt with using iForms and no RPG as well.

If you add up the hours you probably spent on that project you could have paid for iForms at least once most likely.

I think we've both made our points and agree to disagree on AFP relevance :-)

See you at QUSER next week ?

Happy Holidays.

Regards,

Richard Schoen
Director of Document Management
e. richard.schoen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
p. 952.486.6802
w. helpsystems.com

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message: 1
date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 11:07:05 -0600
from: Vernon Hamberg<vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
subject: Re: Help Systems' email about AFP support discontinued at 7.3
- not true ! - or is it ?

A product like iForms can be an excellent alternative - for one, it has design capabilities that ARE going away at 7.3.

I have found the use of the AFPRSC PRTF keyword to make the use of images much easier now - it has been around, apparently, since V5R3 or 4, maybe longer. We use it to put signatures into invoice reprints where we used to use page segments.

At 7.2, that keyword is supported by Host Print Transform - not at 7.1 - sigh! But it IS supported by CPYSPLF with a PDF output.

I've not tried overlays yet - but I have to think that the AFPRSC keyword, being positionable, would allow using a GIF or TIFF or even PDF that contains the form structure. (Not sure about PDF, but it is listed as a valid file type for AFPRSC.)

GIF is not listed in the printer file documentation but is usable - PNG, which we really want to print from, is not yet supported on IBM i, although it IS a part of the overall IBM AFP structure. I hope it's coming!

I was concerned about the statement - yes, there are good-enough reasons to go to a product like iForms - AND the email was misleading. I expect better from the people I know there.

Cheers
Vern

On 12/8/2016 9:53 AM, Richard Schoen wrote:

Vern is technically correct that the AFP data steam is not slated for removal from IBM i that I know of .

However let's be honest who wants to continue using and investing resources in AFP long term unless you like manual overlay creation.

AFP is an outdated and painful technology to work with and IBM sold off its printing division which subsequently is removing support for AFP utilities and Infoprint Designer and is recommending 3rd party alternatives, thus the intent of the marketing email.

There are no fewer than 5-6 manual process steps to create an overlay and that method appears to be still available if you like pain.

If not then you should consider tools like our iForms software to modernize your form generation processes and do push button preview during design.

Hope that calm's Verns excitement since I know he uses AFP heavily :-)

And if you're looking to modernize your form processes take the opportunity to schedule an iForms demo and move towards the future.

http://www.helpsystems.com

Regards,

Richard Schoen
Director of Document Management
e. richard.schoen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
p. 952.486.6802
w. helpsystems.com

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message: 7
date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 09:08:02 -0600
from: Vernon Hamberg<vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
subject: Help Systems' email about AFP support discontinued at 7.3 -
not true!

Just got an email from Help Systems saying that AFP is not supported
on IBM i 7.3 - this is not the case!

What is no longer supported is the 5770-AF1 product, Advanced Function
Printing __Utilities__ - my emphasis on __Utilities__ a la Chuck Pence'
newsgroup formatting! :)

There is no indication that the AFP data stream and protocol are no
longer supported - just this and one other tool for designing pages.
(InfoPrint Designer is also no longer supported - I thought that had
gone away some time ago.)

So an unfortunate over-enthusiastic misunderstanding, eh, what?

Regards
Vern

Re: Help Systems' email about AFP support discontinued at 7.3 - not true - or is it ?