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IBM Rational HATS V7.1 expands the capability of the HATS product to enable mobile device access to HATS applications and provide improved Web services capabilities. Specific new features include:
Optional installable WebFacing Tool in HATS Toolkit
Prior to HATS V7.1, the WebFacing Tool was provided as part of a different product. HATS V7.1 continues to integrate the HATS and WebFacing technologies by providing optionally installable WebFacing features. You can now install the IBM WebFacing Tool for System i and the Portal support for IBM WebFacing Tool for System i as part of the HATS installation process. The IBM WebFacing Tool for System i feature of the HATS Toolkit provides the ability to convert i5/OS data description specification (DDS) display file source members into a Web-based user interface for your existing 5250 programs. The Portal support for IBM WebFacing Tool for System i feature provides portal support for the WebFacing feature.
Support for mobile devices
You can now develop HATS Web applications that provide screen transformation access to your host applications from mobile devices such as cellular phones, data collection terminals, and personal digital assistants (PDAs). This allows you to improve the productivity of your increasingly mobile workforce and can help you broaden your customer base and improve your level of service. The application development process is the same as with any HATS Web application with some considerations due to the capabilities of the mobile device and its Web browser. For example, HATS now provides Columns placement support for subfile and table widgets. This is useful when displaying table data on a mobile device by allowing the arrangement and exclusion of columns from the display, as well as by allowing expandable details sections so the table can fit into a smaller space.
JSR 168 support
You can now create HATS portlets that comply with the standard Java Portlet Specification (JSR) 168 API. In addition, using a wizard you can convert a HATS Web application to a HATS portlet that complies with the standard JSR 168 API. The term cooperative portlets refers to the capability of portlets on a page to interact with each other by sharing information. WebSphere Portal provides a portlet service, named property broker, which provides the ability for portlets to send and receive information between each other. HATS JSR 168 portlet support includes an easy-to-use GUI for developing a cooperative portlet solution using the property broker service. A new action, "Send global variable" allows you to send the value of a global variable as a property through the property broker service. A new "Portlet settings" tab allows you to set project settings for receiving a property from the property broker service and assigning its value to a global variable. Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP) is a standard that portals can use to provide portlets, applications, and content as WSRP services, and other portals can integrate the WSRP services as remote portlets for their users. You can use WSRP services with your portal to provide HATS JSR 168 portlets as remote portlets that can be consumed by other portals. With HATS JSR 168 portlets you can allow your users to set connection parameters and global variables in their portlet preferences using portlet edit mode. In addition, you can now use Model 1 Web pages and the "Forward to URL" and "Insert Forward to HATS Application" actions to integrate the use of Integration Objects with HATS JSR 168 portlets. You can continue to create HATS portlets that comply with the IBM Portlet API. However, use of the IBM Portlet API is deprecated in HATS V7.1 and in WebSphere Portal V6.0.
Visual Macro Editor – Technical Preview
The Visual Macro Editor is a new tool for visually developing HATS macros. Macros are scripts that navigate through and interact with 3270, 5250, or VT host applications. Macros are used in HATS transformation applications and HATS Web Services. The Visual Macro Editor combines many of the features of the HATS Macro Editor, Host Terminal, and Advanced Macro Editor into one tool, and allows for offline development of macros. It provides optional, automatic capture of screens as a macro is being recorded in the host terminal. It also allows flows to be copied between macros and provides drag-and-drop support for adding new screens. Note: For HATS V7.1, the Visual Macro Editor is a technical preview that can be optionally installed. It is not supported but is provided for use as-is.
Updating HATS Web services
If changes are made to HATS Integration Objects, the corresponding Web services support files must also be updated. A new wizard gives you an easy way to determine which Integration Objects are included in an existing HATS Web service, making it easier and less error-prone to update the Web services support files.
WebFacing Application Bridge.
The application bridge is of great value when enhancing your i5/OS application by allowing you to implement part of it as a Web application, such as Enterprise Generation Language (EGL), and modernizing other parts of your application with WebFacing or HATS. It allows WebFacing to transfer control and data to and from other Web application, such as EGL, giving you the ability to combine HATS, WebFacing, and EGL into a single application. Note: In addition to the WebFacing Application Bridge, HATS provides features such as Web services support, Integration Objects, the Forward to URL action, global variables as parameters, business logic, and runtime APIs that enable integration with other Web applications.
Improved keyboard navigation for rich client applications
A new setting, arrow key navigation, allows the use of the up, down, right, and left arrow keys to navigate to non-protected and protected fields on host screens rendered by HATS rich client applications. This is typical behavior for a terminal emulator application. The setting is enabled as part of the classic terminal emulator project theme and can also be enabled as a client setting in the project editor.
Additional features
Visual confirmation of subfile recognition Visual indicators now confirm whether a subfile is recognized using the current subfile recognition settings. This makes it easier to tune the subfile component settings to ensure recognition of each element of a subfile. Enhanced global variable support In addition to actions for application and screen events that allow you to create and set global variables, a new action is provided that allows you to remove global variables. You can use this action to remove one or more global variables. This eliminates the need to write your own business logic to remove global variables. Automatic WebSphere class loader policy update during creation of business logic and custom components and widgets If you add business logic, custom components, or custom widgets to a HATS application, the WebSphere Application Server class loader policy for the application must be changed so that it will run properly when deployed. New support in HATS automatically changes the class loader policy for these applications if deployed to WebSphere Application Server V6.0 or V6.1. This eliminates the need for you to manually change the class loader policy. Bidirectional language support improvements HATS support for bidirectional languages is improved in several ways, including automatic entry of Arabic/Hebrew or Latin characters based on the field typing direction. Global variables can be inserted into transformations in visual format, and Model 1 and JSF Web page interfaces to Integration Objects can provide input field prompts and extracted output in visual format. In addition, bidirectional formats can more easily be specified when creating HATS Web services. Double-byte character set support improvements Double-byte character set (DBCS) languages consist of ideographic characters instead of phonetic alphabets. Thousands of ideographic characters are used in these languages, and currently defined code pages or fonts do not always meet the requirements for these characters. User-defined characters (UDCs) are used to support the necessary characters that are not defined in code pages or fonts. HATS support for displaying and printing UDCs is improved through the introduction of a new UDC wizard. This wizard makes it easier to create UDC mapping files (for display) and font-image files (for print) and configure them in HATS. HATS supports the display of UDCs for 3270, 3270E, and 5250 connections, and the printing of UDCs in Adobe PDF and PDT modes for 3270E connections. Encrypted passwords in user list entries The user list is a list of users IDs and passwords that can be used by the connect macro for connecting to a host application. A new setting, Encrypt user list properties, allows you to store the passwords for all of the user list entries in encrypted form.
Improvements for the accessibility of HATS applications include:
- A new option in the Advanced rendering project settings, "Close default rendering table data and row tags", allows you to specify that better-formed HTML for tables be used in default rendering for the purposes of improving the use of screen readers.
- Example code in HATS supplied templates illustrates how to provide a direct link to the host transformation area that can be used to bypass all of the navigational links in the template when using screen readers.
- A new HATS preference, "Alert recognition errors with audible alarm", allows you to specify that an audible alert (beep) be played when there is a recognition error, for example, on the Subfile component settings page. This is useful if the developer must be alerted to use screen reader software to read the message area.
- Improvements to the screen readability of the HATS administrative console screens.
- An indication of the language used in templates and administrative console screens is provided for use by screen readers.
- Miscellaneous improvements in templates and administrative console .jsp files to meet industry HTML standards.
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