Minisoft is taking another step towards its new mission of becoming a development and connectivity resource for HP e3000s, as the company ships its Web Dimension suite this month.

The software is an application server and collection of Java components, deployed on the HP 3000 and other platforms to Web-enable existing applications. Web Dimension can also be used to create client-server interfaces for HP 3000 programs. The resulting applications can run in a Web browser, or in the program’s Java-based user interface viewer for more complicated interfaces. Even the viewer is platform-independent, because Web Dimension generates and works with Java.

Minisoft’s co-founder Doug Greenup said the software lets customers Web-enable applications for which they can’t change source code. Even when the code changes are possible, Web Dimension doesn’t require any changes to Web-enable a program. Greenup said the software will work with any combination of existing interface, from PowerHouse Quick screens to Speedware to VPlus to custom-engineered interfaces.

“Web Dimension will deal with every screen, and every application,” he said. “The beauty of our product is that it uses our own JDBC driver, included in Web Dimension for access to IMAGE databases on the 3000. Then we can use any other JDBC driver for access on any other platform.”

Greenup said that if a 3000 site wants to blend data between Oracle and IMAGE databases, Web Dimension has a means to do it through JDBC. The product also includes full HP 3000 terminal emulation through the Minisoft Javelin software, which delivers a complete emulator for use in Java-compatible client desktops.

The software’s specifications let it adapt to whatever screen display method is used in an application. Greenup said some competing solutions are crafted only to handle pure VPlus screens — in fact, an early version of Minisoft’s FrontMan GUI tool worked only with pure VPlus. Web Dimension can employ a full 3000 screen handler with its Javelin module to accept whatever screen calls are being used.

“When we decided to continue with this product, we had some real important criteria,” said Minisoft technical chief Joe Grimm. “One of the criteria was that it couldn’t be restricted to just VPlus. The overwhelming majority of people cannot modify their source code, and the source code they have is not 100 percent VPlus.”

Grimm said Minisoft also wanted to create applications that were platform independent, both on the client and server sides. “That’s why everything’s in Java,” Grimm said. “You can pick the deployment of your application and create your security aspects. Almost everybody doesn’t just want to make things look pretty — they want to add functionality in the application. The main way to do that is through some kind of data access.”

A Web Dimension application consists of an application class and user interface page classes. The classes are Java code which use the Web Dimension components to construct an application and its user interface. The application and user interface page classes can be built using typical visual development environments such as Visual Cafe and JBuilder. The Web Dimension back-end and user interface components are very powerful and flexible, so typically no coding is required.

The applications give developers access to the Java code that Web Dimension creates, which can be useful for building very complex applications and user interfaces. Web Dimension components implement events and user exits, to make it easier to change components’ functionality.

A legacy application access component lets Web Dimension applications use and control existing HP 3000 applications. Minisoft says the legacy application requires no changes to be used by the legacy application access component. Information from the legacy application’s user interface can be used in new Web Dimension user interface pages. Web Dimension user interface pages can also supply input information to the legacy application’s user interface. Minisoft includes pre-built Web Dimension applications that will run typical HP 3000 legacy applications as-is.

A database access component allows a Web Dimension application to access databases through the JDBC API. In addition to IMAGE access, this provides access to non-3000 databases such as SQL Server, Informix, Sybase, and DB2. A custom object access component gives access to custom-built objects. The custom objects can be built in any language and deployed on a number of platforms.

The software also employs design-time wizards to help build applications and user interface pages. One wizard builds user interface pages that correspond to legacy applications or database queries — to give developers a starting point for a new application and its user interface pages. Another wizard builds HTML pages to match Web Dimension user interface pages. For those pages that will be deployed through a Web browser, this wizard lets the developer use any HTML editor to edit the appearance of the pages.

“There’s a lot of different ways you can put Web Dimension applications together,” Grimm said. “It’s built to be very general so you can do a lot of things. You can do the same things you can do with Cold Fusion with Web Dimension. It’s going to take us awhile to figure out how to tell everyone all the things they can do with it.”