Using the Bridge Designer Views

The designer has several "views" or interface panels which provide tools and information about your project and tasks. You can show or hide each view by choosing it from the Window menu.

To access context-sensitive Help in the designer, use the F1 key on your keyboard. This feature is enabled for all dialog boxes, and all views except the Live Interaction view.
View Description
Live Interaction Interact with the host.
  • By default this view includes a QuickPad for easy entry of AID keys. You can hide it by choosing, from the Window menu, Preferences.

  • Host fields in this view can be highlighted using the right-click menu. Protected fields are underlined in red; unprotected fields are underlined in green.

This view appears to emulate a host screen, but it is not an emulator — it does not provide full local terminal key handling support. It does, however, provide basic cursor manipulation key support such as TAB, ARROW, and BACKSPACE. Also, this view provides automatic TAB support, so if you enter data up to the end of a field then the cursor will automatically TAB to the next unprotected field for additional data entry.

The designer uses a copy of the Bridge Java requestor to communicate with the Bridge. All interactions with the host, including navigation, gathering information (such as field properties for screen rendering, and so on), are driven by internal API calls. (To review these internal API calls in the API log, click the Show Internal API Calls toolbar button in the API Log view).

A set of supported 3270 keystrokes function in the Live Interaction view of the designer. Because of this, the F1 method of accessing Help is disabled for the Live Interaction view. Pressing the F1 key enters the PF1 aid key. For more information about supported keystrokes, see Supported 3270 Keystrokes
Offline Review
  • Use to view each of the host screens in your project, without interacting with the host.

    Protected fields are highlighted in red; unprotected fields are highlighted in green.

  • Streamline variable creation: drag-and-drop a newly created variable from the Variables view to use as an input to an API call. Or, create a variable to use as an output from an API call by dragging the target host field from the Offline Review view to the Variables view.
API Calls Shows a list of the API calls in your project, organized by host screen or interaction.

For more information about this view, see Using the API Calls View.
Parameter Values Displays the values associated with the API call selected in the API Log view.
Variables Create variables to use as inputs or outputs to your API calls. Drag-and-drop a newly created variable to the Offline Review view to use as an input to an API call. Or, create a variable to use as an output from an API call by dragging the target host field from the Offline Review view to the Variables view.

For more information about this view, see Creating Variables.
API Log Displays the results when you execute an API, either through a live interaction (a recording), or by testing (executing already recorded or inserted API calls).

For more information about this view, see Using the API Log View.
Properties Displays the properties of items selected in other views.

Items that show properties in this view include screens, fields, and API calls selected in the API Calls view, fields selected in the Offline Review view, and variables selected in the Variables view.

For more information about this view, see Using the Properties View.

 

Related Topics
Bullet Generating Host Access Code
Bullet Supported 3270 Keystrokes
Bullet Using the API Calls View
Bullet Using the API Log View
Bullet Creating Variables
Bullet Using the Properties View