The Four Hundred

IBM's PC5250 software is probably the most widely used program in iSeries and AS/400 history. With its ability to create 5250 display and printer sessions for Microsoft Windows users, it's an indispensable tool that, in one form or another, has been around for over a decade. Because of that history, IBM has slipped in lots of goodies that make it a more valuable tool for your users. Given the wide variety of additional features you can activate for a PC5250 installation, here are five special features that I like to add to my PC5250 installs.

I activate these features to make life easier for my users and to avoid potential problems in the process. Although the tweaks I describe here are written to a Client Access Express for Windows V5R1M0 (Express Client) and OS/400 V5R1 specification, most of them are available in other Client Access versions, including the new iSeries Access for Windows V5R2 software.

Set up your PC5250 sessions to avoid duplicate names with other 5250 devices on your network. A duplicate name occurs when a user attempts to start a session with a workstation ID (or device name) that has the same name as another device being used on the network, which causes problems for both devices. In Express client V5R1M0, you avoid this problem by using two features on the session's Configure PC5250 screen (which is reached by clicking Communication, then Configure, from the PC5250 menu bar). On this screen, check both the "Avoid duplicate names on this workstation" and "Avoid duplicate names with other workstations" check boxes. When these features are activated, Client Access and OS/400 will append special identifiers to the end of any device names created by your session, so that each session has a unique device name that doesn't conflict with other device names. If the "Avoid duplicate names on this workstation" check box is selected, Client Access appends a letter from A through Z to the end of the device name to make the name unique, in case you start a second session on your workstation using the same configuration. If the "Avoid Duplicate Names with other workstations" check box is selected, Client Access appends a character in the range of 1 through 9 or A through Z to the end of your device name, so that the name is unique to the iSeries or AS/400 you are connecting to. It's best to turn both settings on in tandem.

If you're creating different PC5250 sessions that link to two or more iSeries boxes, change the foreground color on your sessions to designate which machine the user is connected to. PC5250 has a color mapping feature that allows you to change either foreground or background color of a session. If you're setting up two different sessions, to connect to two different iSeries boxes, you might want to change the foreground text color on one of the sessions to another color besides green text, so that the user can easily tell which box he's attached to. Using color mapping, you can set up a color scheme where green text on a black background is used for sessions connecting to your first iSeries box, white text on a black background is used for sessions that connect to your second iSeries, and so on. To use color mapping inside a session, go to the PC5250 menu bar and click Edit, Preferences, Appearance, then Color Mapping.

After creating a PC5250 printer session, add an OS/400 reply list entry to automatically answer load-form messages whenever the printer senses a form change. For most printer sessions I've configured, there's usually only one type of paper loaded, and it slows things down to wait for a user to answer a load-form message. You can bypass this check by using an automatic reply that tells OS/400 the paper is loaded. Although this isn't technically a Client Access configuration, it makes day-to-day management of PC5250 printer sessions easier. For directions on how to automatically add system-reply messages for this function, see these Admin Alert articles: "How to Auto-Answer Printer Load Form Messages," "Remote OUTQs and Auto-Answer Printer Messages," and "More on Remote OUTQs and Printer Load Form Messages."

Add a PC5250 shortcut to the Windows desktop for anyone who may be using the new session now or in the future. Don't ignore the PCSWS022 message ("Do you want to add an icon for this session to a folder?") that appears after you save a PC5250 session. You can use this function to browse through the user's Windows directories and add a shortcut to the universal desktop that all Windows users access on that machine. For a multi-user Windows 2000 machine, the desktop folder is in the "Documents" and "Settings\All Users\Desktop" folder (it's in slightly different locations on other Windows operating systems). After adding the shortcut to the folder, your session will appear on the Windows desktop no matter who's signed on to the machine.

Add a PC5250 shortcut to your Windows startup folder. If you want to have Windows 2000 start a session automatically after any user logs in, add a shortcut that points to your PC5250 session in the "Documents" and "Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup" folder. This will activate your sessions whenever the computer is rebooted, which is very useful for printer sessions. (Again, the startup folder location will be slightly different for different Windows operating systems, but you can use this feature in all versions of Windows.)