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Re: AutoRecognise Keyboard inputs
OK - for those of you who just "have to know" - this is what a colleague managed to dig out of memory/documents and it is pretty intimidating stuff with no guarantees at the end!
It all centers around what is known as Word Processing Mode - but we're still not convinced it does much for you on input. And the amount of work involved means there is no way I'm going to "play" to find out.
Here's the details - as you will see not all "real" 5250s support it. And there's no guarantee that an individual emulator will do so. They have to support it in both their controller functions and in the display logic itself.
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I've never used this but I think there are two parts to it:
One done by the PC (Text Assist) if host support is not available. I don't know much, if anything, about that.
The other is supported by the 5250 data stream. I'm not sure if a particular level of controller firmware is required. I'd expect so ( like the enhanced DDS support) but I should think all current controllers should support it. Note that for emulators, the emulator itself is also the controller. It just has to respond that it can handle the enhanced DS features and OS/400 will send it the data.
During initial connexion (after signon) the OS should send a 5250 Query Request asking the controller to describe it's capabilities. The controller/emulator responds with a 5250 Query Response. Both of these are described in the 5494 Remote Control Unit Reference (Chapter 15), plus some additional fields are described in the DSM API section (for Query APIs I think), plus some new bits in a "Unicode Enablement in the 5250 Datastream" document, and Bruce Vining sent me some documentation on Invisible Tags to clarify what is found in the DSM documentation.
The device capabilities section of the 5250 Query Response is 22 bytes. Bytes 2 and 5 of this section control various Office-related behaviour.
Byte 2 Bit 0 Text Symbol support when on
Byte 2 Bit 1 Support for extended primary attributes in WP mode when on
Byte 2 Bit 2-4 Office Editor/Text support: B'000' No support
B'001' Single language support
B'010' Dual language support
Byte 5 Bit 2 WordPerfect support in Office Editor when on
Byte 5 Bit 3 Dynamic status line and scale line available in Office Editor when on
I don't see anything directly related to keyboard handling.
In addition, I think you also have to put the device in WP mode. The only way I know to do that is via a user-defined data stream. A UDDS is prefixed by a 5-byte header described in the Application Display Programming manual:
BIN(2) sendLength
BIN(2) recvLength
CHAR(1) function
Function can be one of:
x'51' Send in WP mode
x'52' Send/Recv in WP mode
x'61' Send 3270
x'62' Send/Recv 3270
x'71' Send 5250
x'72' Send/Recv 5250
I don't know if responding to the 5250 Query with various WP capabilities set is sufficient or whether you also need to build your own data stream. My guess is you'll need to build it yourself.
You could trace a PC5250 Session using the Office Editor ... if you had access to an old enough system with that installed ... and see what the DS looks like.
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None of which changes my original perspective that you have to be out of your tree to even attempt this. I guess if you are paid by the hour and the client has a bottomless wallet ...
Jon P.
OK - for those of you who just "have to know" - this is what a colleague managed to dig out of memory/documents and it is pretty intimidating stuff with no guarantees at the end!
It all centers around what is known as Word Processing Mode - but we're still not convinced it does much for you on input. And the amount of work involved means there is no way I'm going to "play" to find out.
Here's the details - as you will see not all "real" 5250s support it. And there's no guarantee that an individual emulator will do so. They have to support it in both their controller functions and in the display logic itself.
--------------------------------------------------------------
I've never used this but I think there are two parts to it:
One done by the PC (Text Assist) if host support is not available. I don't know much, if anything, about that.
The other is supported by the 5250 data stream. I'm not sure if a particular level of controller firmware is required. I'd expect so ( like the enhanced DDS support) but I should think all current controllers should support it. Note that for emulators, the emulator itself is also the controller. It just has to respond that it can handle the enhanced DS features and OS/400 will send it the data.
During initial connexion (after signon) the OS should send a 5250 Query Request asking the controller to describe it's capabilities. The controller/emulator responds with a 5250 Query Response. Both of these are described in the 5494 Remote Control Unit Reference (Chapter 15), plus some additional fields are described in the DSM API section (for Query APIs I think), plus some new bits in a "Unicode Enablement in the 5250 Datastream" document, and Bruce Vining sent me some documentation on Invisible Tags to clarify what is found in the DSM documentation.
The device capabilities section of the 5250 Query Response is 22 bytes. Bytes 2 and 5 of this section control various Office-related behaviour.
Byte 2 Bit 0 Text Symbol support when on
Byte 2 Bit 1 Support for extended primary attributes in WP mode when on
Byte 2 Bit 2-4 Office Editor/Text support: B'000' No support
B'001' Single language support
B'010' Dual language support
Byte 5 Bit 2 WordPerfect support in Office Editor when on
Byte 5 Bit 3 Dynamic status line and scale line available in Office Editor when on
I don't see anything directly related to keyboard handling.
In addition, I think you also have to put the device in WP mode. The only way I know to do that is via a user-defined data stream. A UDDS is prefixed by a 5-byte header described in the Application Display Programming manual:
BIN(2) sendLength
BIN(2) recvLength
CHAR(1) function
Function can be one of:
x'51' Send in WP mode
x'52' Send/Recv in WP mode
x'61' Send 3270
x'62' Send/Recv 3270
x'71' Send 5250
x'72' Send/Recv 5250
I don't know if responding to the 5250 Query with various WP capabilities set is sufficient or whether you also need to build your own data stream. My guess is you'll need to build it yourself.
You could trace a PC5250 Session using the Office Editor ... if you had access to an old enough system with that installed ... and see what the DS looks like.
--------------------------------------------------------------
None of which changes my original perspective that you have to be out of your tree to even attempt this. I guess if you are paid by the hour and the client has a bottomless wallet ...
Jon P.
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