NovellÒ

exteNd Composer

3270 Connect

January 2004

Welcome to Novell^® exteNd Composer^TM 3270 Connect Version 5.0. These release notes include the following sections:

What is New in v5.0	Enhancements in 3270 Connect v5.0
Installation notes	Important information about enabling exteNd Composer 3270 Connect
Software and hardware requirements	Software and hardware needed to run exteNd 3270 Connect
Features	Features in this release of exteNd Composer 3270 Connect
Known issues	Known issues with this release of exteNd Composer 3270 Connect

What is New in V5.0

exteNd Composer 3270 Connect 5.0 has been enhanced to work with the new Novell exteNd 5 Composer Enterprise Edition 5.0 and to take advantage of the new and enhanced Actions.

Cursor Position Capture: The user may now capture the cursor position when recording a session with the host. This enhancement enables the user to record a full session without the need to pause and re-animate to the navigation point.

Installation notes

As of extend 5 Composer Enterprise Edition 5.0, the Composer Connectors are no longer installed separately. To make installation easier, the Composer Connectors are automatically installed when extend 5 Composer Enterprise Edition 5.0 is installed.

Evaluation licenses are provided for each of the Composer solutions. The evaluation licenses expire 90 days after installation.

Within the Composer designer, you can enable any of the Composer solutions using the Systems Information dialog’s Licenses tab. Navigate to the System Information dialog from the Help / About exteNd Composer menu item. Press the System button and click the Licenses tab.

To enable a Composer solution, simply click its associated ‘Enabled’ checkbox and press OK.

Note: When enabling a Composer Connector, you need to enable each of the Connector’s components. For example, if you want to enable 3270 Connect, you need to click the Enabled checkbox associated with 3270 and 3270logon and press OK.

When you purchase a full license for a solution, you may edit the solution’s license by clicking the Edit… button and entering the full license.

The same is true on the server side and a console dialog is provided for enabling Composer solutions and editing license keys.

If you experience problems with the installation of 3270 Connect, contact Novell technical support for manual installation steps.

Software and hardware minimum requirements

There is no additional hardware or 3^rd party software requirement to install or use any Connector within exteNd Composer. Please see the hardware and software requirements included with both exteNd Composer Enterprise Server and Developer.

Connectors are engineered to work in conjunction with your exteNd Composer core products and are compatible with the same major version of the core products.

Tutorial

There is no tutorial sent with 3270 Connect. Since every environment is unique, the process for setting up the connections may vary. You can deploy the 3270 components in the same manner you deploy XML Map and JDBC components. Refer to the exteNd Composer tutorial.

Features of exteNd Composer 3270 Connect

The following is a brief description of the exteNd Composer 3270 Connect feature set. For a more detailed look at the features and functionality please read the exteNd Composer 3270 Connect User Guide provided with the software and on the CD-ROM.

3270 Connect is a separately installable product that integrates directly with your existing exteNd Composer installation and provides the ability to integrate your business applications running through 3270 terminal type interfaces to your integration projects.

In addition to the features listed below 3270 Connect inherits all the functionality of the exteNd Composer XML Mapping Component Editor. Please see the exteNd Composer Users Guide for more information.

Connectivity – allow the user to create a connection to a system using 3270 terminal emulation

o Provides code page support

o Connectivity to all types of applications through the TN3270 connection type

o Connections to CICS Regions running under OS/390 and MVS operating systems, and IBM TXSeries running on scaled down platforms through the EPI connection

o User name and password supplied on the connection

Visual Integration – Provides a terminal emulation view of the application you are integrating.

o Drag and Drop between the terminal sessions and your XML Templates

o Action Model created for the navigation rules.

o Access to all information on a screen including messages that then can be used in building the business logic

o Support for data conversions to and from EBCIDIC to UNICODE as required

Advanced Processes – Provides the ability to perform complex manipulations of screen information.

o XML DOM representation of the Screen – can be used to easily create a HTML version of the data through XSL processing

o Easily describe and map repeating elements on a screen

o Stop and restart the recording of the business processes being mapped

o Animate the built components for testing and debugging

Known issues

This release has the following known issues (workarounds are specified if known):

Console on WebSphere

o If you deploy exteNd Composer service components to more than one WebSphere application server you will need to copy the exteNd Composer consoles for 3270 Connect, 5250 Connect, Telnet Connect and SAP Connect to each application server. This will allow you to monitor the various exteNd Composer Connector connection pools for the specific application servers.

Instructions which describe how to copy these exteNd Composer Consoles are available for from the exteNd Composer Product Download section on www.Novell.com. Also included in this download is a new file called exteNdComposerConsoles.ear, which is required.

Connection Pool

o It is possible for two different deployed projects to have the same connection name (pooled) specified, in which case one component in one project may call into the connection pool of the project erroneously.

Workaround: To avoid this problem be sure to uniquely name all connections.

Help System

o If you have both 3270 and 5250 Connectors installed, selecting Help Topics (F1) from the menu in 3270 Connector will display 5250 help documents. This happens on the main windows for 3270 and 5250, the Stylesheet editor dialogs, and the MultiRow wizard and dialogs.

Animation

o During animation, the STOP button does not work during run to the end. When running to a break point, first press Pause to stop the animator then press STOP.

Other

o When creating a MultiRow Action if you do not walk through each panel of the wizard the MultiRow action will be created incorrectly

o Within the 3270 Component there exists a connect/disconnect button for an existing Terminal or EPI connection. The disconnect for the terminal connection works as expected, but the disconnect for an EPI Connection will not release the Gateway connection until the Component window is closed using the Windows Task Manager to kill the process. The EPI disconnect will in fact hang the exteNd Composer application, but if the user can wait long enough the connection will time out after 7 - 10 minutes.

o Open a 3270 component, then change the Logon or Password of the connection it is using. Run the component. The ID/PWD have not changed. Apparently the connection info is cached. Once you exit the component and reopen you are ok.

o When using the Pre-initialize Pool feature, if the user is using a connection from a sub-project, the connection name that should be used is the original and not the shared connection name. (i.e. TutorialEnd:InventorySystem.xml vs. InventorySystem.xml)

o Importing a 3270 component will fail if the connection does not exist.

Workaround: Import the connection first, then import the component.