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Status Not under consideration
Workspace IBM i
Categories IBM i Access Family
Created by Guest
Created on May 1, 2018

Non-Displayable Characters in IBM Access Client Solutions

Using 5250 emulation, our programming team regularly has to display files with Non-Displayable characters for various types of fields. These always used to display as Blocks instead of ? characters in the V7R1 (and all other previous versions) of IBM i Access for Windows.

In the V7R3 IBM Access Client Solutions, the emulator now displays ? marks instead of Blocks. This creates a serious problem as instead of reporting to the user that there is a non-displayable character in the field, it shows a question mark character. There is therefore, no way to tell if a ? shown is an actual ? character or a placeholder for a Non-Displayable character and is a serious problem when trying to identify the information and format of a file.

We request that the emulator be updated to work as it has done sone for all the past versions of the IBM 5250 emulator.


Use Case:

Programming, format of files


Idea priority High
  • Guest
    Reply
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    May 9, 2018

    Looks good to me but I will run it by the Programming manager who is out till friday and i will keep you posted

  • Guest
    Reply
    |
    May 3, 2018

    ACS is using a block character for non-displayable characters. The issue is with the (default) IBM3270 font. It was designed for an ANSI application. For a unicode application like ACS, there is not a glyph defined for that character in the IBM3270 font. Our recommendation is to select a different font. From an emulator session, select Edit->Preferences->Appearance->Font. Select any other font and you should see the non-displayable characters as a block. For example, try Lucida Console. If none of your existing fonts are acceptable, the ACS emulator will work with other mono-spaced fonts which are readily available on the internet.

    Let us know if that meets the requirement.

  • Guest
    Reply
    |
    May 1, 2018

    Attachment (Description): Please see attachment for screenshots, hopefully it helps you to better understand our predicament.