Preparing Your Application

AcuToWeb relies on your program or application to be run with AcuConnect, and so when preparing your application, you must bear that in mind.

Details on how to prepare your application are covered in the AcuConnect documentation; use the links at the bottom of the topic for further details.

ActiveX controls and .NET controls are not supported by AcuToWeb in the context of a user interface; however, using the CREATE verb to instantiate an ActiveX control with no UI, or using CREATE to instantiate a .NET assembly with no UI should continue to work.

With AcuToWeb, your COBOL application interface displays in a browser. By default, the title of the tab in the browser is 'AcuToWeb' .You can change this by using the ACUTOWEB_TAB_TITLE configuration variable; it can be set in a runtime configuration file and then specified in the AcuConnect alias, or by using the SET phrase within your COBOL source.

If you are planning to deploy a character mode application that will include DBCS characters, then you should be aware of the effect that AcuToWeb sizing has on text and layout elements when a screen is displayed. AcuToWeb uses cascading style sheets to render the web pages when viewing the application within your browser.

When dealing with character screens and DBCS characters, AcuToWeb offers two ways to view the screen. The default way is that the DBCS character text is presented properly, but screen elements for entry may not lay out like they do when running through the runtime. Alternatively, if the layout of your screen elements is more important to your application than the text, then you can use a theme provided: in the URL used to launch your program, add &theme=./examples/DBCS_fixed_table.css, which ensures screen elements are laid out correctly.

Note: You can also select the DBCS_fixed_table.css style sheet from the Themes setting on the Properties dialog box, on the Gateway Services tab of the AcuToWeb Control Panel. Select it before the service is started; otherwise, you must restart the service before the style sheet has an effect.