Screen Scaping

[Dale DeMott]

Okay.. Here�s a good question for you. I need to do some screen scraping on some mainframe systems. In other words, I need to either set or get data on a specific area on a mainframe screen. Is there some sort of tool or 3rd party tool to help me out in doing this in Java. Alternatively, for that matter, is there another tool out there to help me do this. This would be operating from a PC. The task is to automate account creation. The reason why they want to automate it is that they need to go to several back end systems to do this. Therefore, it would be much easier if we created some soft of tool to help us w/this. Currently it is being done with a Word macro. The problem w/this is that the company will not be supporting that version of word anymore and they want to upgrade ALL machines. Any help there. What do you think? Thanks in advance.
-Dale
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What's this H2SO4 doing in my fridge?? ( thud )

[Cindy Glass]

Do you really just want to screen scrape, so that the code behind the mainframe screens is still executed. This would give you a nice pretty but non-functional client GUI (yuck).
Or are you talking about putting a java front end on some mainframe databases? (much more cool). Then you can just write a GUI and use JDBC calls to the mainframe the same as you would call Access or Oracle. In addition you get to practice all sorts of fun java stuff.
We have a forum here dedicated to JDBC connections.

[Dale DeMott]

No, it would have to screen scrape. I have no option to change the environment for the mainframe, and this needs to be done from a PC as well.
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What's this H2SO4 doing in my fridge?? ( thud )

[Cindy Glass]

OH well.... Can you tell us a bit more in detail what the current word macro actually does so we could figure out how to reporduce it.

[Dale DeMott]

Well, I need to be able to go to a specified area of the main frame screen, be able to push a button or get a value off the screen. So in other words input the location on the screen, execute key commands (simulate a terminal connection) and be able to get values from specified areas as well. Therefore, it might be something like this if it were a macro
8 Down
15 left
Type ("dogbert")
Type (returnkey)
wait 15
get (10,15)
if returned success
telluser (account created)
Something of that nature. I need a cheap macro interrupter/creator to sit on top of Java or of that nature.

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What's this H2SO4 doing in my fridge?? ( thud )

[Cindy Glass]

Here are a couple of screen scrapers out there but I dno't know how cheap they are:
http://www.jacada.com/apps/screen_scraper/
http://www.screenscraper.com/index.html
http://www.wintunnel.com/
Here is a little article about the topic in general http://www.zdnet.com/filters/printerfriendly/0,6061,2551718-35,00.html
http://www.money.com/money/depts/websmart/webwatch/archive/000615.html
have fun!

[Dale DeMott]

Thank you Cindy, I appreciate your help!
-Dale

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What's this H2SO4 doing in my fridge?? ( thud )

[Dale DeMott]

By the way, what is J/Direct? Someone says it can do the same thing as these screen scrapers...
Is this true..

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What's this H2SO4 doing in my fridge?? ( thud )

[Cindy Glass]

J/Direct is a means of interfacing Java code with native Windows code (this is one of those Microsoft entrapment things - good only if you NEVER leave the Microsoft fold).
I allows you to sort of "import" windows DLL files as though they were java classes without all the rigamarole of JNI.
However J/Direct was bundled with J++ and Microsoft gave up on that (and you want to TRUST this company?). I don't know if they have moved it over to Visual Studio.Net or not. Since they are working on C# instead of Java I wouldn't be suprised to see it show up there.
http://www.eu.microsoft.com/java/resource/jdirect.htm http://www.sunworld.com/sunworldonline/swol-06-1997/swol-06-jdirect.html