Actions

The Actions tab of the screen event editor displays the configured actions for the screen event.

If you want to change the order of the actions, select one and click Up or Down to move that action higher or lower in the list.

You can also Edit or Remove any actions which appear in the list as well as Add a new action.

These actions are performed by the ZIETrans runtime in the order that they are listed. If you want to display the transformed host screen to the user with some prefilled fields, for example, be sure to modify the host screen (using an Insert data action, for example) before you display the transformed host screen (using an Apply transformation action). If you use a Play macro action or a Send key action in a screen event, that action must be the last action in the list.

When all the actions in the screen event have been performed, ZIETrans may send a default command to the transformation host in order to drive the host application off of the currently-recognized screen. Otherwise, an infinite loop might occur through the actions in the screen event. Selecting Send a host key when the list completes to cause screen to change lets you determine which key to send after completion of the action list. By default, the ZIETrans runtime will send an [enter] to the transformation host at the end of the action list. An aid key is sent if:

No command parameter is received by the servlet from an Apply transformation action and
No macro has been run against the transformation host using a Play macro action and
No Send key action has sent the transformation host a screen-changing aid key.

So, if the action list contains an Apply transformation action, and the user sends the F2 command in response to the transformation, the [pf2] command will be sent rather than any default command. Likewise, if the screen event ends with a Play macro action, no default command will be sent.

You can add, edit, or remove actions on this tab. These are the possible actions:

Apply transformation
Execute business logic
Extract global variable
Insert data
Set global variable
Remove global variable
Show URL (Web-only)
Forward to URL (Web-only)
Play macro
Perform macro transaction
Send key
Disconnect
Pause

All the action types you have defined for the screen event and their descriptions are shown in the table on the Actions tab. If you highlight a row of the table and click Edit, the Edit Action dialog appears.

If you click Add, the Select an Action wizard appears. The first panel shows a list of all the actions available. You can select the action you want to occur by clicking the radio button of that action and click Next. Depending on the action you select, the rest of the panel displays information that you can specify for that action.

Note: You cannot change the action type in the Edit Action dialog. You can change only the information that applies to the action.

Ordinarily you will not apply a transformation and play a macro as actions on the same screen. If both actions are specified, the transformation will be applied, and the macro will be run only after the user interacts with the transformed screen. The playing of a macro is always the last action to be taken. If you want a macro to be played automatically when a screen is recognized, do not apply a transformation to that screen. When you create the screen event for that screen, you should clear the Apply a transformation check box on the Actions page of the wizard. You can create another screen event for the last host screen to which your macro will navigate, and apply a transformation to govern the appearance of the Web page derived from that final screen.

You can insert a macro button into a transformation to enable the user to run a macro from the transformed screen. In this case, the user can either interact with the transformed screen or click the macro button to cause a macro to begin running at the current host screen.

You can record macros in the ZIETrans Toolkit using the host terminal. For more information about importing macros, see Macros and host terminal.