SystemObjects Delivers an AJAX Experience for iSeries Users

Published: March 21, 2006

by Alex Woodie

Development tool provider SystemObjects is expected to announce a new tool that will allow iSeries shops to deliver AJAX capabilities in applications that have been modernized with its Jaci400 tool. AJAX, an acronym for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, isn't so much a new technology as a collection of existing technologies that allow developers to create Web interfaces that behave much more like Windows programs running locally, instead of server-based applications running across a million miles of IP lines.

One of the challenges developers face when modernizing 5250 applications with Web interfaces is how to accurately reproduce the user experience--or at least some aspects of the existing user experience. After all, a Web browser communicating with a remote server using HTTP behaves much differently than a 5250 screen with a direct connection to an iSeries server. The difference can be both good and bad.

On the plus side, users gain a graphical interface that is, without a doubt, more intuitive to new users. This is the primary motivation in creating Web interfaces to existing applications, as the Web browser has become the defacto standard user interface in this day and age.

However, there are negative aspects of Web applications, too, such as the need to continually refresh the screen when changes are made. This continual refreshing can add much more wait time to an n-tier, Web-based application than a standard RPG or COBOL application using the highly efficient 5250 protocol. For OS/400 shops looking to modernize their existing apps with new Web interfaces, this can be a fairly significant obstacle, especially when they're modernizing inward-facing query and account maintenance applications, which are fairly common types of OS/400 applications.

This is why AJAX technology may be a real boon to OS/400 application developers. With AJAX, the application is run primarily in the Web browser, which can update parts of the screen at any time, independent of a server connection (the asynchronous part). This makes it easier for the user to continually see how changes they make to the screen will impact other areas. As such, AJAX has found a home in Web tasks such as updating or deleting records, returning search queries, or expanding Web forms--all of which are right up the iSeries' alley.

At the COMMON conference in Minneapolis next week, SystemObjects is planning to announce the general availability of a new version of its Jaci400 Generator that brings AJAX capabilities to Web clients generated with the tool.

Jaci400 (pronounced "jay-see") is a suite of application modernization tools designed to enable RPG and COBOL developers to put HTML interfaces onto their 5250 screens. The company says no programming is required to develop JACi400 applications (although knowledge of one's database is, like all development tools in this class), as the software walks the user through the process of defining the parameters and data model, and configuring the application, which run on the iSeries from the WebSphere Application Server, the Apache and Tomcat Web application servers, or IBM's WebSphere Portal Server.

Serge Charbit, president and CEO of the Paris, France-based company, says the new AJAX for Jaci400 Generator module will be useful for creating Web applications that search DB2/400 files. "It's a completely new way to create search programs," Charbit says. However, search programs aren't the only type of application that can be given an AJAX interface with the new release of Jaci400. "The limit is the imagination," he says.

One example of how AJAX is used within Jaci400 is field prompts. When users begin to enter information in the field of a Web app created with this tool, they will be prompted with suggestions for what they are looking for based on what they have typed, such as a certain customer name or a customer number. In this way, users will be able to search for and locate specific customer records in DB2/400 very quickly. This technology will also be very handy for creating F4 "pop-up" screens, Charbit says.

System Objects is delivering the new AJAX capability as an optional component of its Jaci400 Generator module. The Jaci400 Generator is one of five modules in the Jaci400 suite; the others are Conversion, for converting 5250 applications into HTML; Development, for developing WebSphere or Tomcat apps using RPG or COBOL in place of Java; Generator for generating source code for Jaci400 applications; Portlet for running Jaci400 applications in WebSphere Portal; and Deployment, the run-time component generating HTML screens from legacy programs and providing printer connectivity.

System Objects has several demos on its Web site that show how the new AJAX capability can be used to create Web applications that allow users to access DB2/400 files and update the records. You can access these demos at www.systemobjects.com/webdemo/demo.html.