Call Program Via URL

[James-S]

Is there a way in Profound to invoke a program via a URL address? Like put a program name as a parameter in the URL string itself.

[Scott Klement]

You posted this in the Genie forum, so I assume your question pertains to Genie. (Your message says "in Profound", but its not clear which product that refers to, as Profound is the name of our company, rather than a specific tool.)

Genie is a 5250 emulator, and must abide by the rules of a 5250 interactive session. It is no different from ACS, Client Access, etc.

We do provide Genie Macros, however. You could write a Genie Macro that takes a variable from the URL. The macro would log the user on, navigate to a command line or menu, and call a program using the name from the URL. Obviously, the user would need sufficient authority to run it. More about Genie Macros can be found here:
http://www.profoundlogic.com/docs/display/PUI/Macros

If your question pertains to a different tool, then please specify the tool.

[James-S]

Hi Scott.

Thanks for the reply and requesting info for the specific product. In our company the users just say "Profound" application so I get caught up in that as well.

I was thinking Genie when I posted and will look at the link you provided.

When you mentioned the different products we are also looking to do something similar from a Rich Display application. This would just open a new browser tab invoking another Rich Display program. I can post this question in the Rich Display Topics if needed.

[Scott Klement]

With regards to Rich Displays, we do provide that capability for anonymous programs (i.e. programs that don't require you to sign on, but can be run by anyone)
http://www.profoundlogic.com/docs/displ ... s+Sessions

We don't provide it for authenticated sessions because of the way a lot of shops approach security. I know, the "right" way to do security would be to set up the object-level security on every object so that users only have authority to run the progams that you allow them to run. But, for various reasons, a lot of shops don't do that. They "secure" their applications by only giving the user a menu option for what they are allowed to run, or in Rich Display by setting their initial program to point to the only thing they're allowed to run. If we let them "just call anything" via the URL, this would bypass their security.

Having said that... you can easily write a little CL program that lets you call something from the URL. The gist of it is this:

1. All (most?) users have their initial program set to your CL program.
2. The CL program receives parameters from the URL using the Program Parameter Interface documented here: http://www.profoundlogic.com/docs/displ ... +Interface
3. The CL program simply does a CALL to whatever is provided in the parameters.

This is also handy because you can do things like add your own custom security into the CL program, you can trap errors and report them to the appropriate support/helpdesk people, dump job logs, etc.

[James-S]

Hi Scott.

The CL approach may work for us as we have a method to determine if a user has access to a program object. I will take a look at your additional link as well. Both seem to have some merits which we can review and discuss on our team.

Thanks again for your quick response. Best wishes!