Arrangements for A 3270 compatible terminal with browser capability

• US 20090113017A1
• Filed: 10/29/2007
• Published: 04/30/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Denis Neuhart, James Tyler Parcher
• Original Assignee: Denis Neuhart, James Tyler Parcher
• Inventors: Neuhart, Denis, Parcher, James Tyler
• Granted Patent: US 8,156,250 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/207
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents

Abstract

Disclosed herein is a system that includes a 3270 compatible terminal that can accept browser compatible languages in a 3270 format and process these languages and display such languages in graphical user interface format. In some embodiments it can appear that the browser performs as a “plug-in” to the 3270 application. As utilized herein, a plug is a software module that can “plugs in” to another application under current execution to give the currently running application specific additional functionality.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a transmission in a 3270 compatible format, the transmission including Web compatible data;

detecting a trigger in the transmission;

activating a browser engine in response to the detected trigger; and

processing the Web compatible data with the browser engine.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving a query in a transmission, the query to determine a processing capability and transmitting a reply to the query in response to a processing capability.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying the Web compatible data in a graphical user interface format.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising accepting input responsive to user interactions with the graphical user interface and transmitting a 3270 compatible control signal in response to the user interaction.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising storing one of a 3270 compatible transmission or the displayed data and detecting when the Web compatible data is no longer displayed.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising one of creating an error message or redisplaying the stored display data in response to the Web compatible data no longer being displayed.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving a second transmission without a trigger and deactivating the browser engine.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the Web compatible data is in a hypertext markup language (HTML) format.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the HTML data is embedded in the 3270 compatible format.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising unwrapping packets of the 3270 compatible transmission and processing a second protocol embedded in the 3270 compatible transmission.

15. The system of claim 1, further comprising a query reply module to respond to a query regarding a browser capability.

16. The system of claim 1, further comprising a session state module to detect if a currently displayed page is not a latest received 3270 compatible transmission.

11. A system comprising:

a 3270 data stream manager module to process a 3270 compatible data stream received from a 3270 compatible application, the 3270 compatible application to envelope a Web compatible language into the 3270 compatible data stream;

a trigger detector module to detect a trigger in 3270 compatible data stream; and

a browser engine to receive and process the Web compatible language in response to the detected trigger.

12. The system of claim 11, further comprising a switch to activate the browser engine and to provide at least a portion of the 3270 compatible data stream to the browser engine based on the detection of the trigger.

13. The system of claim 11, further comprising a switch to switch the data stream to the browser engine in response to the trigger.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the Web compatible language is hypertext mark-up language.

17. A machine-accessible medium containing instructions which, when the instructions are executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform operations, comprising:

receiving a transmission in a 3270 compatible format, the transmission including browser compatible data;

detecting a trigger in the transmission;

activating a browser engine in response to the detected trigger; and

processing the browser compatible data with the browser engine.

18. The machine-accessible medium of claim 17, that when executed causes the computer to receive a query in a transmission, the query to determine a processing capability and transmitting a reply to the query when the processing capability is available.

19. The machine-accessible medium of claim 17, that when executed causes the computer to display the browser compatible data in a graphical user interface format.

20. The machine-accessible medium of claim 17, that when executed causes the computer to accept input responsive to user interactions with the graphical user interface and to transmit a 3270 compatible control signal in response to the user interaction.