BlueZone offers a wide variety of powerful tools for automating
repetitive tasks, streamlining the user interface, and communicating
with external applications. BlueZone scripts can be recorded in either
a proprietary format, or in a text-based format recorded in either
VBScript or JavaScript.
Note: Some applications refer to the function used to automate tasks
as a macro. BlueZone refers to this function as a script and offers
several automation technologies from the Script menu
in the BlueZone emulators.
- BlueZone proprietary scripts
- BlueZone proprietary scripts are recorded and played back using
a proprietary method. Scripts are created by recording keystrokes,
but can be edited later to change the playback. BlueZone proprietary
scripts are targeted at users with a basic understanding of scripting
and logic, but without the skill sets required to write and edit VBScripts
or JavaScripts.
Scripts are edited using the BlueZone Script Editor
(bzse.exe) application, which is opened from
the BlueZone emulator menu bar by selecting , and selecting a .bzs script
file.
BlueZone Script Editor is a GUI tool that allows users
to drag script events into the script flow, change the order of events,
and delete previously recorded events. BlueZone scripts support a
proprietary mechanism called Wait_Ready that ensures that the host
is ready to accept input, even when using TN3270 or TN3270E.
BlueZone
proprietary scripts have the following features:
- Easy to record.
- Easy to edit with BlueZone Script Editor.
- Keyboard lock state aware.
- Support advanced functions like wait for, watch for, text input,
and so on.
- Can execute other programs using the Run command.
- Can run BlueZone menu commands, for example, Copy, Paste, and
Print Screen.
- Can accept variables passed from a BlueZone Web-to-Host Object
Tag, for example, Login ID and Password generated dynamically by the
web application and used to sign the user into the mainframe.
- The BlueZone administrator can control whether or not end users
can record and play scripts or only play scripts. Refer to Controlling scripting access for more information on this
feature.
- Do not support text input variables.
- Do not support file I/O.
- Does not have external application integration.
- BlueZone text-based scripts
- BlueZone text-based scripts can be written or recorded in either
VBScript or JavaScript. Scripts are typically created by recording
keystrokes, but can be edited later to change the playback. BlueZone
text-based scripts are targeted at users who want to leverage their
proficiency with either VBScript or JavaScript, and want to take advantage
of being able to write and edit BlueZone scripts in a scripting language
that they already know.
Scripts are edited using the BlueZone Script
Host and Debugger (bzsh.exe) application, which
is opened from the BlueZone emulator menu bar by selecting ,
and selecting a .vbs or .js script
file.
BlueZone text-based scripts have the following features:
- Easy to record or can be written from scratch.
- Written in VBScript or JavaScript.
- Easy to edit with BlueZone Script Host and Debugger.
- Support unique BlueZone methods that control the behavior of BlueZone.
- Require a working knowledge of VBScript or Java Script.