Hide a field from user view.

[joe751]

Hi all,
I hope someone can help me with the following issue :
I have a VBA program (EXCEL 2007 Macro) that works fine with EXTRA 9.0 Service Pack 2
to connect and emulate a session from a host machine using an ABC.edp file and navigate in the different screens of the application once launched.

With this current solution all screens of the host machine run in foreground mode and are seen by the user.
I would like to hide the information parameter on the initial connection screen but not sure how to do it.

****************************************************
* Userlogin : JohnDoe
* Password : xxxx
* Center : ABC
* Parameter : 123
*****************************************************
Parameter : 123 should be displayed as **** or empty space.

On the host session, I need to hide the parameter value 123 or replace it with
something else so that this information is kept private and not shared with user.
The value 123 not displayed is still needed to connect to the host machine.

Any idea how to do it?

-Change color of the police since the screen background is black

Acceptable solution would be not to display this specific connection screen entirely

I have tried to use commande Application.visible = False then Application.visible = True before and after calling the screen
as well as Application.ScreenUpdating = False but with no result so far

---Sample of the code below:
‘Private variable
Public EXTRA As Object
‘Building of EXTRA objects
Set System = CreateObject("EXTRA.System")
Set Sessions = System.Sessions
Set session = System.ActiveSession
Set Me.EXTRA = session.screen



' Login data Input
EXTRA.putstring userLogin, 7, 40
EXTRA.putstring Password, 8, 40
EXTRA.putstring Center, 9, 40
EXTRA.putstring "123", 10, 40
EXTRA.SendKeys ("<ENTER>")

WaitProcessingEnd

 

[SkipVought]

Hi,

Your terminal emulator should handle non-display fields like password. Yes?

 

[joe751]

Hi SkipVought ,
not sure to understand what you mean "Your terminal emulator should handle non-display fields like password"

The program i am working on uses EXTRA to replicate user input command after connecting to the host server for transactions.

I need to keep one field (Not the password!) private on the login screen and want to know if is possible to do it.

Manually,each user access the connection screen with Login,Center and parameter fields but only password field is hidden on the display.

In automatic mode for productity and speed things up , i want to use a different parameter value than the one used in manual mode and want to keep that value hidden.

If it not possible, do you know how to make Extra run in background mode only without displaying Information on display?

Thanks

 

[SkipVought]

Extra is a terminal emulator. It emulates some sort of dumb terminal that is used to I/O to your msinframe. That's all it is.

Open your Extra HELP and see if the system, session or terminal has a Visible property.

 

[joe751]

Thanks for your hint about looking for a visible property.
I did not find anything the first time in the extra session or help but i may have missed something.
I will look again.

 

[joe751]

And finally if this visible property exists, i will need to be able to activate from my macro.

 

[joe751]

No, i have been searching thoroughly through the Extra! help guide and i did not find any hint you can hide the
host session window!

 

[SkipVought]

Well then that's most likely the answer.

 

[remy988]

my Help file indicates the following:

Description

Sets the object to visible or invisible, or returns its visibility status -- TRUE if visible, FALSE if invisible. Read-write.

Syntax

object.Visible

Element Description
object Any of the above-listed objects.
Comments

By default, a new session does not appear. To make it visible, set the property to TRUE. Likewise, to make a QuickPad or Toolbar appear, set its Visible property to TRUE.

This is my code from Excel 2010

Sub Vis()
    Dim System As Object
    Dim Sessions As Object
    Dim Session7  As Object
    Set System = CreateObject("EXTRA.System")
    Set Sessions = System.Sessions
    Set Session7 = System.activesession
    Session7.Visible = 0      'TRUE = Show window, FALSE = Hide window    Session7.screen.SendKeys ("<clear>")
    Session7.screen.putstring "hello", 1, 1
    Session7.Visible = 1
End Sub

 

[joe751]

Thank you.This could be a very good
solution.I ll put it to the test first thing monday.
Thanks again for your help

 

[joe751]

Thanks both of you.
It's better, i managed to make the session invisible and visible again to mask the information on a specific screen
there is still some inconstencies,the session when visible again appears in a very small window but i will figure this out.

@ SkipVought : Indeed there was some gem to be found in the online manual, i also found some examples from Attachmate that helped a lot.
@remy988 : your program was very helpful...i did not could make it work at the beginning but now it works.

 

[remy988]

joe751,

here's a tip.
if you save your Extra Attachmate session as a layout (elf); then open the layout with the Macro Editor, it should reveal how to define the coordinates and screen size for the session.