Prompt action

The Prompt action provides a powerful way to send immediate user keyboard input into the 3270 or 5250 application or into a variable.

Name

Specifies the name of the prompt. This name is displayed in the prompt to the user, so you can use it to provide instructions related to the prompt field.

If a prompt already exists with the same name, a warning message displays to notify you that proceeding will override the settings for the existing prompt.

Default value

Specifies a default value to use for the prompt field.

Password protect input

Select this box to encrypt prompt input provided by the user.

Note: Default values that you specify for prompts are stored in macro files unencrypted. The default values display in the clear when you edit prompts using the macro editors. Therefore, while using a prompt to specify a password is an appropriate thing to do, for security reasons you should not specify a default value for the password.

Save value to macro variable

Select this box to specify a macro variable in which to save the prompt input. This option is only displayed if macro variables are enabled for the macro. The Do not insert value into field option is only enabled if Save value to macro variable is selected.

Variable

Select the variable in which to save the prompt input. The drop-down menu is populated with all variables defined in the macro.

Do not insert value into field

Select this box to have the macro runtime not display the prompt input in the input field. This field is enabled only when the Save value to macro variable box is selected.

Clear field before inserting value

Select this box to have the macro runtime clear the contents of the input field before typing begins.

Insert at current cursor position

Select this box to have the macro runtime insert the prompt input at the current cursor position on the host terminal. Clear this box to set the cursor Row and Column fields yourself. Enter the cursor row and column at which to insert the prompt input. If a screen capture is available, you can click on it to set the cursor row and column. You can also enter into the Row and Column fields a variable name in the form $var$.

Translate host action keys

Select this box, which is the default value, to have the macro runtime interpret an action key string (such as [enter]) as an action key rather than as a literal string.

Move cursor to end of input

Select this box to have the macro runtime move the text cursor to the end of the input

The Handler section enables you to determine how the prompt is processed. You can select one of the following radio buttons:

Show handler

For HCL ZIETrans Web projects, you can select a .jsp file to prompt the user for the necessary information, and include a button for the user to submit the information. A default macro handler, named default.jsp, is shipped with ZIETrans. You can find this file by clicking the ZIETrans Projects view of the Toolkit, expanding the project name, and expanding Web Content > Macro Event Handlers. If you want to create your own handler, ensure that you return control to the ZIETrans runtime.

Note: Integration Objects ignore the selected .jsp handler. Instead, an input page is created for the Integration Object, and a prompt for the value is placed in that input page. The generated output page copies the value supplied by the input page into the Integration Object before the Integration Object is run.

Set prompt to string

If you know what value should be returned from a prompt, you can enter that string in the String field.

Set prompt to global variable

If you want the value of the prompt to be provided by a global variable, enter a name for the global variable in the Name field or select an existing variable using the drop-down menu next to the Global variable field. If you click the Advanced button, you can specify whether your variable is shared or indexed. If it is an indexed variable, you also need to specify whether to show all indexes or a single index. For more information about global variables, see the chapter, Interacting with global variables.

Note:

If a prompt value is based on a global variable set by an extract, and the promptall attribute is set to true, the extract action is not run before the prompts values are retrieved. Because of this, the global variable used by the prompt does not contain a value. If you use global variables with extracts and prompts, you should set the promptall attribute to false. For further information regarding the promptall attribute, see The promptall attributes.

Integration Objects do not access global variables directly. Instead, the input and output pages for the Integration Object retrieve the global variable value, and set it into the Integration Object before it is run. Only shared global variables can be accessed by Integration Objects.

Set prompt to property from User List

If you want the prompt to access a user list, select the User Profile from the drop-down list. The user profile is the key as to determining whether to use the userid or password as the User List property. For more information about user lists, see User List.

Note: User list prompts can only be used in connect macros.

Use Web Express Logon

If you have configured your ZIETrans application to use web express logon, enter the prompt type as either the user ID or password in the Prompt type drop-down list and enter the application ID in the Application ID field.

Note: The Prompt type should be prefilled with the correct value.

For more information see Prompt action (<prompt> element). .