Jagacy Software

We’ve been busy. Sales of Jagacy products increased 400% last year, up from only a 250% increase in 2006. By the end of next month, sales for this year will be up 800% (projected). We’ve increased sales even despite the Library of Congress (and the University of Florida’s LUIS) removing public 3270 access. By the way, the examples will be modified in Jagacy 3270 1.5.9, to be released on or before February 4th.

As a side note, we are extremely interested in Bill Gate’s Creative Capitalism initiative. We are a globally aware company, and the initiative falls within our business plan. More to follow as the initiative unfolds. Watch for C# versions of Jagacy 3270 and Jagacy VT in the first/second quarter of 2008!

Best regards,

Bob

Great News! We’ve just released Jagacy VT 1.1.1, that now provides VT220 support, in addition to the previous features of small footprint, SSL support, log4j support, etc.

In addition, we’ve also released terminal emulators (without screen scraping) for Jagacy 3270 and Jagacy VT. These are superior products that are the most inexpensive Java terminal emulators with SSL support.

Jagacy Software is dedicated to providing the most easy to use, inexpensive legacy products on the market today. We also pride ourselves in superior product support, and we ensure that we go the extra mile for our existing customers. That is why we not only provide free patch releases for our products (like most other companies), but we also provide free minor releases for existing customers. Our customers come first.

I might as well let the cat out of the bag. In the near future we will provide Eclipse plugin terminal integration and automatic code generation for screen scraping! There is no product on the market that provides all of these features. And, of course, you can expect a superior product for an inexpensive price. Upgrade prices for existing customers will be minimal.

We are determined to be the #1 legacy systems integrator with state-of-the-art technologies. Other products in the works are a C# version of Jagacy 3270/VT, and a web screen scraper.

Please remember that all feature and product requests are always welcome.

Best regards,

Bob

The Jagacy products are so simple to use that we do not get many technical support questions. When we do, they almost always regard the following two issues.

1. Intermediate Screens

Using Jagacy 3270 during logon, a few mainframes have intermediate screens. A developer will see that the session has connected but the keyboard is locked. Jagacy 3270 1.5 logs warnings when it detects possible intermediate screens. Using Swing 3270 with a slow update speed will show the developer how many intermediate screens exist. I would suggest adding the following method to wait for changes during logon:

private boolean waitForChange(int timeout,
int intermediateScreenCount) {

if (intermediateScreenCount < 0) {
throw IllegalArgumentException(
“Invalid intermediateScreenCount: ”
.concat(String.valueOf(
intermediateScreenCount)));
}

// Add one for target screen:
intermediateScreenCount++;

boolean isSuccess = false;
while (intermediateScreenCount– > 0) {
isSuccess = waitForChange(timeout);
if (isSuccess) {
break;
}
}

return isSuccess;
}

2. Trailing Timeouts

Using Jagacy VT, sometimes the trailing timeout values are too low. This leads to the symptom where a wait key is entered, a wait method is called, but the screen does not change. However, it works fine using Swing VT. Always start with a large trailing timeout (say four seconds). From there, divide it by two until the screen does not change. Then double the resulting number. This will lead to a robust, yet minimized trailing timeout value.

Best regards,

Bob

Jagacy 3270 1.5 has been released.  It contains SSL, log4j, and end-user terminal support.  Most developers will not need a SSL key file to connect to a mainframe:  Jagacy 3270 supports default ciphers.  The log4j support allows developers to capture logs to rolling files or even connect to a logging server via a socket.  In addition, Jagacy 3270 can now be used as your main terminal emulator.  It has support for system administrators to configure it remotely.  Best of all, its pure Java, so it will run on any platform.

Jagacy VT 1.1 will be released this weekend.  It will contain all the features that Jagacy 3270 already supports, including SSL, log4j, end-user terminal, and custom terminal emulator support.

Best regards,

Bob

Jagacy 3270 1.4 has been released! Now developers can customize their 3270 terminal emulators to provide automated logon and logoff. In addition, they can add toolbar buttons, menus and menu items, status bar messages, and controlling right mouse button clicks.

The next versions of Jagacy 3270 and Jagacy VT will provide SSL support. Developers will have the ability to specify a key file to connect to a mainframe. Future versions will support exciting new features. Stay tuned!

Best regards,

Bob

This post will demonstrate how easy it is to create a screen scraping application quickly. It uses pseudo-code to represent the steps necessary to implement code rapidly.

1. The logon method
   This method should sign in and navigate to the “base” page. The base page is the page where all queries, updates, inserts, and deletes originate from.
2. The logoff method
   This method should be able to navigate back to the sign off page from anywhere within the session. This is usually accomplished by using shortcut commands and keys that the mainframe programmers have placed in the application.
3. The processing method
   This method should navigate from the base page to the target page, perform queries, inserts, deletes, and/or updates, and navigate back to the base page.

Each method described above uses the same pseudo-code to navigate through pages:

a) Check for the unique string on a page. If the page is the target page, then finished.

b) Enter text and/or keys to navigate to the next appropriate page.

c) Call a wait method.

d) goto a).

That’s it! For a Java example of how this works, please see Example1 in the src subdirectory. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

Best regards,

Bob

Jagacy 3270 Version 1.4 Release Candidate 2 has been released. I’m really excited about this version, for it lets a developer easily create his/her own Java emulator! It provides automatic sign on and sign off, configurable menus and toolbar icons, and developer defined status fields. It even comes with an example Java emulator! I haven’t seen this functionality in any other product, and I hope you enjoy it like I do.

Best regards,

Bob

Jagacy products are known for superior screen scraping, but did you know they can be used to create fully featured Java emulators? The emulator that comes with each Jagacy product is tailored to screen scraping, but they can also be customized for any use. Please contact us to receive an free example of a Java emulator that you can use for any purpose.

Best regards,

Bob

We’ve had several feature requests come in, and I thought it would be a good idea to share them with you. Future versions of Jagacy 3270 and Jagacy VT will have:

• Constructors to pass in the port number and terminal type as parameters,
• An open method that passes in the device name (or answerback for Jagacy VT),
• An option to log each screen (with optional color).

On a different note, Jagacy Software and Dignitas Ltd. have teamed up to create a screen scraping application for mainframe testing. You can read about it here.

Also, Jagacy 3270 and Jagacy VT were picked by The Java Posse as Library Of the Week. Many thanks to The Java Posse for this honor.

Best regards,

Bob

Jagacy VT 1.0 has been released. Built upon the same core as Jagacy 3270, it shares the same features: small footprint, simplicity, quickness, and reliability.

But what are tags and trailing timeouts in the new waitForChange methods? Unlike 3270 packets (which are page oriented), VT100 packets are stream oriented. This means that, although a unique string has been recognized on a page, the entire page might not have been received. Tags and trailing timeouts take care of this.

Tags allow the developer to find a string in the raw VT100 data stream. By setting the property:

SESSIONNAME.logLevel=info

(where is the SESSIONNAME is the name of the session), the developer can see the last escape sequence received for a page. This can be used as a tag in a waitForChange method. A future version of Jagacy VT will have a separate window within SwingVT for displaying the raw VT100 data stream.

Trailing timeouts “mop up” any remaining characters found after a tag is found, the mainTimeout expires, or a change occurs. These are a little harder to determine. The best way is a binary search: start with one second, see if the entire page is received, divide by two, and repeat the process. Once the developer has found the minimum trailing timeout, s/he should double it to allow for unforeseen circumstances.

On a different note, I recently received an email from a developer who was very pleased with the performance of Jagacy 3270. He said that his screen scraping application scraped 5.5 pages per second (less than 200ms per page). His clients were “very satisfied with my efforts as they can now validate roughly 100 times the data that they were expecting to be able to accomplish !!!”

Best regards,

Bob