Hotspots

There are two basic classes of emulation supported by HostAccess. These are sometimes known as block mode emulations and asynchronous or character mode emulations. Block mode emulations work by sending blocks of text to the host. Asynchronous mode emulations will send one character at a time to the host.

Block mode emulations tend to be those designed to work with large mainframes, for example IBM 3270 and IBM 5250. Asynchronous emulations tend to be those designed for smaller, mid-range systems such as the DEC VT100, VT220, VT320 and VT420 emulations. Because these emulations work differently, hotspots also work differently.

Hotspots in block mode emulations

A Hotspot is text on the screen which has been programmed by the host application so that when you move the mouse pointer over the text and click the right button, a particular function is activated. Clicking anywhere on the character string ‘F3=Exit’ will execute the exit function.  However, clicking on the ‘Assistant’ part of a function called ‘F13=Information Assistant’, will have no effect. This is because hotspots are delimited by spaces. You would need to click on ‘F13=Information’ to execute that function.

Hotspots can be used in the following emulations: IBM 3270 and IBM 5250.

Cursor control

You can control your cursor using the mouse in the following block mode emulations: IBM 3270, IBM 5250, ICL 7561. First position your cursor anywhere on the screen, then click your left mouse button. Note that if left mouse clicks are required, then left mouse button events must be turned on via AiF.

Hotspots in asynchronous mode emulations

Hotspots in asynchronous mode emulations work differently to those in block-mode emulations. Changes to the ha7ehot.ini file should only be made by the systems administrator or an advanced user.

A hotspot is a word, or sequence of characters on the screen that is separated by whitespace. By default, the whitespace character is simply a space, although this may be defined as another character by editing the ha7ehot.ini file.  A mouse click on a hotspot will enable a defined function.

This section is a comprehensive guide to editing the ha7ehot.ini file. It includes:

  • A hotspot overview table which lists and explains the functions that can be configured by editing the ha7ehot.ini file.

  • How to edit the ha7ehot.ini files.

  • How to activate cursor positioning.

  • How to activate hotwords.

  • How to activate and define alias user hotwords.

  • How to activate function keys.

  • A hotspot reference - this describes how you can customise the way a PC searches for hotspots.

Hotspot overview table

This table lists the functions that can be configured by editing the ha7ehot.ini file.

Name

Definition

Command

Cursor control

Cursor control allows the user to position the cursor on the screen using the mouse. This only works with host applications that recognise cursor key sequences such as full screen editors.

CURSORPOS

Hot function keys

You can use hot function keys with host applications that recognise the appropriate function key sequence. For example, in the System Administration Shell on UNIX, pressing the F1 function key on your keyboard brings up Help. In other systems, function key names (such as F1) may be displayed on the screen. In these circumstances, you can point and click the function name with your mouse to activate that function.

ALIAS_FNKEY

Hot alias user words

 

This allows you to define an alternative sequence for a word on the screen. So for example a user can set up an alternative sequence for the word EXIT such as ESC so clicking on the word EXIT will have the same effect as pressing the ESC key. This is done by editing the ha7ehot.ini file supplied with HostAccess.

ALIAS_USERWORDS

Hot words

You can click on any alphanumeric sequence displayed on the screen. This sequence will then be sent to the host. For example, if you are using a full screen text editor and you want to search for a word, you can bring up a search prompt and click on a word displayed on the screen. This will start a search for that word.

HOTWORD

Editing the ha7ehot.ini files

To edit the ha7ehot.ini files:

You need to edit the part of the ha7ehot.ini file that defines which mouse key will perform the action, e.g.

right_click = HOTWORD

post_right_click = <CR>

The right mouse button is set so that when a hotword on the screen is clicked, it will be sent to the host.

You can set a right mouse key to send a combination of hotspots, for example:

ALIAS_USERWORDS + ALIAS_FNKEY + CURSORPOS

HOTWORD and CURSORPOS are mutually exclusive, you can have one or the other but not both.

The order in which HostAccess searches for the sequences are as follows:

ALIAS_USERWORDS, FNKEY, HOTWORDS or CURSORPOS

Activating cursor positioning

To activate cursor positioning:

Edit the ha7ehot.ini file so that the right mouse key is set to CURSORPOS, for example:

right_click = CURSORPOS

defines the right mouse key as the key which will position the cursor when clicked.

Activating hotwords

To activate hotwords:

Edit the ha7ehot.ini file so that the right mouse key is set to HOTWORD, for example:

right_click = HOTWORD

Activating and defining alias user hotwords

A hotword is defined in the host application.  If you want to define a hotword in the ha7ehot.ini file, you define an ALIAS_USERWORD in the [alias] section of the .ini file. So for example, you could define the word BREAK to send the sequence ^C to the host.

  1. Insert the text:
    BREAK = ^C
    in the ha7ehot.ini file in the [alias] section.

  2. Edit the ha7ehot.ini file so that it says:
    right_click = ALIAS_USERWORD

Activating function keys

For hot function keys to work, the application screen must display function keys. The range is F1 through to F24. If ALIAS_FNKEY is activated, when a user clicks on a function key on the screen, the character string that represents that function key will be sent to the host. If the host recognises the character string it will perform the function.

Defining whitespace

You can define whitespace so that characters other than just space can separate words. This is defined using the whitespace command, e.g. whitespace = <SPACE>[]
so the following line:
|    F1 HELP [EXIT]  |
would contain three hotspots: F1, HELP and EXIT.

Defining eatchars

The eatchars command defines characters which will be removed from hot words.  For example, if you clicked on the text string  ‘help-screen’ and you had defined the character ‘-’  as an eatchar, the string  ‘helpscreen’ would be set to the host.

A NONE sequence

A NONE sequence  means that no command will be performed unless a post click sequence has been defined. A post click sequence is a sequence that is sent to the host if  none of the commands can be achieved.

Defining a post-click sequence

A post-click sequence is a sequence which is sent if none of the commands can be achieved, for example, if a user clicks on a word on the screen that is not a hotword. This is defined in:

post_right_click =

You can define it to send a sequence of characters and/or keystrokes. If it is left blank, nothing will be sent at all.

For example:

post_right_click = <cr>

will send a carriage return to the host.