Bug Busters Serves Up Ease of Use with New Release of Menu Tool

by Alex Woodie

Bug Busters Software Engineering recently announced a new version of its A la Carte menu and security system, a tool for creating green-screen menus and managing access to OS/400 objects. With ALC 3.0, the Seattle software company has added ease-of-use features, such as support for custom function keys, the capability to track the use of menus, and several other improvements in the way administrators and users create and maintain menus.

The ALC tool gives administrators a central place where they can manage the way that users access OS/400 applications and which system objects they are allowed to use. With ALC, authorized users can create their own menus that give them quick and easy access to the applications and commands they need to get their job done. As a security tool, ALC lets administrators restrict access to OS/400 objects by individuals or groups. And because the menus and options that ALC creates are true OS/400 objects, its security is backed by the operating system; all OS/400 security levels are supported.

What's New on the Menu

Bug Busters has made several improvements in the way users interact with the system, with the release of ALC 3.0, which became generally available in late April. First, Bug Busters allows administrators to add up to 14 different function keys to each menu screen. Each function key can be associated with any program or command, and authority to access a function key can be controlled by a user and groups of users.

ALC 3.0 also gives administrators the capability to check whether users are actually using the menu options available to them. The new "last used" capability reports when certain menu options were last used. This information could be helpful to administrators in assessing whether applications are being used, and whether users need to clean up their menu screens.

ALC 3.0 also has three new options for creating and working with menu screens:

• The new "menu initialization" capability runs a predefined program every time a menu is created, which should make it easier for administrators to add a standard set of function keys and menu options to every menu they create.
• A new command that Bug Busters calls "maintain menus while using them" lets users modify menus even as they use them (provided the user has the authority to make changes). This feature prevents users from having to open a separate maintenance program to make changes.
• The new "block move" function lets administrators move entire blocks of menu options from one location to another on a menu screen, eliminating the need to move options one by one.

Licenses for ALC 3.0 cost $1,200 per machine, and annual maintenance fees are $180. Trial downloads are available at www.bugbusters.net.

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