Hi, and my first post

Hi, my name is Al Rodriguez. Have been with IBM since 1989; proud member of WebFacing team since 2005.

I will try to contribute posts related to WebFacing, mainly in the areas of customization and configuration. Let the remaining of this post be my first customization tip: Enhancing date input fields with a calendar widget. This tip reflects my opinion, and is in no way:

• complete,
• recommended,
• supported,
• well written … sorry.

Introduction

WebFacing is not just another screen scraper. Webfacing converts display files into standard J2EE artifacts, that can be understood and molded by Web designers.

WebFacing supports a large subset of DSPF keywords, but not all. The list is largely driven by customer input and is maintained here: list. There are many reasons why not all keywords are supported; they range from complexity to them representing 5250 concepts not applicable to web applications. But, let this be the subject of a future post… My point here is that it is very likely that initial conversion of set of DSPF’s by WebFacing will result in a working web application. But to generate a best of breed web application; some DSPF rework (not requiring logic changes), and web design work is likely required.

A strength of WebFacing lies in customization. But well designed web pages do not just happen; they are the result of creativity and web technology expertize.

This post illustrates several WebFacing customization techniques by adding calendar widgets to input date fields.

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