Creating iSeries Web interactions

A Web interaction consists of three components:
  • An input page to collect the input parameters
  • An action to process the input
  • An output page which displays any output parameters from the action
For example, the user views a page in a browser that displays one or more fields. The user enters data in the fields and clicks a Submit button. This input request is processed by the host program and the output is sent back to the browser as a results page. This sequence of submitting input through a browser, processing by the program, and returning output to the browser is a Web interaction. A Web application includes an entire sequence of Web interactions, where the output page of one interaction is used as the input page of another interaction.
You can create a Web interaction with the iSeries Web Interaction wizard in several ways:
  • Use the iSeries Web Interaction wizard to generate the JSP files that are used as the input and output pages for your Web application. The wizard adds iSeries Web components (fields and controls), to the JSP files, and generates the Java classes used to communicate with your business processes.
  • Create the JSP files that you want to use as the input and output pages for your Web application, and then use the iSeries Web Interaction wizard to add coding within the JSP files and to generate the Java classes used to communicate with your business processes.
  • Generate a Web interaction that ends a Web application. This type of interaction does not require communication with a program, procedure, or Java bean.
Note: When you create the JSP files that are used with the iSeries Web Interaction wizard, the following conditions must be met:
Restriction: The names of the PCML file and the MPCML file generated by the Web Interaction wizard are the same as the Web project name. For example, if the Web project name is myproj, then the PCML file that is generated is myproj.pcml. Similarly, the name of the MPCML file is myproj.mpcml.
  • If you create a new Web project and then import all of the files, including the PCML and MPCML files, from another Web project, the name of the PCML and MPCML files no longer match the name of the new Web project. As a result, the Web application fails to run correctly. You must rename the PCML and MPCML files to match the Web project name to resolve this problem.
  • If you rename an existing Web project, be sure to rename the PCML and the MPCML files to match the new Web project name.