RE: [WEB400] Can CGI Do this ???

[Buck Calabro <Buck.Calabro@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Nathan!

>"Webbish" to me means browsable (point and click).
>But that doesn't diminish the need for keyboard
>actions in an application as well.  In a data
>entry / maintenance context, a subfile still
>makes sense to me.

I agree with both sentiments, but we are finding more and more that there
are very few heads down data entry tasks left.  The world is turning into a
single transaction at a time place.  For instance, in the old days, we would
take orders from customers on the phone, and keypunch them in a batch.
Today, we take one order at a time, with a list of items (in a subfile).
Tomorrow, the customer's inventory system will web service our order entry
system, which will web service a verification.  No subfile at all.  If the
customer wants to see a real-time status, the generated panel won't look
like a subfile.

>> As background, the number one comment I get on my
>> WebFaced app is that it looks just like the green screen.
>> And the people saying that are not being complimentary.
>
>Would that comment be from the people using the application?
>Or the ones selling it?

Both.

It's a bizarre situation that I can't claim to understand.  If the user has
5250 experience, they WANT the 5250 UI.  If they don't have 5250 experience,
they find "emulated" 5250 panels clunky.

>My reason for asking is because I still hear
>positive feedback from green-screen users.

The majority of our existing customers do NOT want a GUI of any kind.  They
like the 5250 interface.  But we positively have lost sales because
prospects will not look at us without either a Windows GUI or a browser GUI.

>On the other hand, are Webfaced applications too
>slow for people to use?

WDSc 4 has improved the speed a lot.  It's not as fast as 5250, but it is
about as fast as other browser based applications (about 1 sec per panel.)
  --buck