Technical Notes |
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This technical note provides an overview of common Reflection features and is designed to help users convert from KEA! (VT) to Reflection.
The information in this technical note is organized into the following sections:
For further information about Reflection, see Technical Note 9990.
Follow these steps to install Reflection to a single computer.
Note: Reflection displays the “Optional Upgrade to Windows Installer” dialog box at this time and offers to update your version of the Microsoft Installer (MSI). If this service must be upgraded, you will need to restart the machine and restart the Reflection setup program. When you return to this screen, click Workstation Install and continue your installation of the Reflection product. You can skip this step if you already have the minimum version required to install Reflection (v2.0).
Note: The Reflection Administrator’s Toolkit should be installed to a folder different from the Reflection product.
Use this dialog box to select the features and subfeatures you would like to install. To determine which subfeatures are set to be installed, click the + button to open the feature tree. (By default, some subfeatures are disabled when the parent feature is enabled.)
Note for Kea340 users: If you are migrating from Kea340, select ReGIS Graphics under Host Access > HP, UNIX & OpenVMS.
To view installation options, click the Reflection feature and then choose an installation type as described below:
Will be installed/Entire feature will be installed on local hard drive: These choices will install some or all of the features you select to your computer.
Will be installed/Entire feature will be installed to run from network: These choices will install the minimum files required to run some or all of the features from an Administrative Installation Point.
Feature will be installed when required: The feature will not be installed at this time. When components of the feature are first invoked, the Windows Installer service runs, and the feature is installed to the local drive.
Entire feature will be unavailable: The feature will not be installed.
For more detailed information about installing Reflection products, see the Installation Guide at http://support.attachmate.com/manuals/rhpuo.html.
Reflection saves all connection settings and display, toolbar, menu, macro, keyboard, and mouse setup customizations in binary settings files. A Reflection settings file is similar to a KEA! config file (KTC).
To create a new settings file, modify your Reflection configuration, and then click File > Save. Once you save a settings file, you can restore your Reflection configuration by opening the settings file.
Here are some tips for using Reflection settings files:
There are a number of ways to launch a Reflection session. Typically, you will want to open a settings file that contains the configuration information you need. The following actions launch Reflection with a settings file already loaded:
Reflection provides numerous network connection and terminal emulation settings that allow you to customize your connections.
The following Reflection network options are configurable from the Connection > Connection Setup dialog box.
The following terminal emulation settings are configurable from the Setup > Terminal dialog box.
For example, to make a Telnet connection with VT100 emulation:
Here are some tips for getting connected:
Reflection provides powerful customization features that can make using your host application faster and easier. For instance, you can customize toolbars, assign keystrokes or mouse actions to terminal keys or functions, customize menus and commands, and change the color and appearance of your host application in Reflection.
Four pre-defined toolbars are available for quick access to frequently-used commands. You can modify the toolbars, or you can create custom toolbars to launch macros, execute commands, or send text strings. Toolbars can be attached to any of the terminal window margins or floated in a separate window, similar to the KEA Smartpad feature.
The default toolbar is displayed the first time you start Reflection. The buttons are as follows:
Opens a Reflection untitled session.
Opens the Open Settings dialog box (click the folder) or displays a list of recently-opened files (click the down arrow).
Saves the configuration to the current settings file. If there is no settings file in use, this button opens the Save Settings File dialog box.
Opens the Print dialog box, where you can set up a printer and print a file.
Opens the Find dialog box that enables you to search for a word or phrase in the terminal window and display memory.
Copies selected text to the Clipboard. Data remains in the Clipboard until you overwrite it (by copying something new to the Clipboard) or until you exit Windows.
Pastes text from the Clipboard to the cursor location.
Connects to the host. If no host has been configured from a settings file or in the Connection Setup dialog box, Reflection prompts for a host name.
Opens the Transfer dialog box, where you can transfer data between your PC and the host.
Opens the Run Macro dialog box, where you select a macro to run.
Starts recording your actions in a macro, which you can run later.
Decreases the size of Reflection's terminal window with each click of the button.
Returns Reflection's terminal window to its default size.
Increases the size of Reflection's terminal window with each click of the button.
Causes Reflection's Terminal Window to display full screen, without status bar, menu bar, or toolbar.
Turns the mouse cursor into a Help pointer. When you use the Help pointer to select a menu command or click part of the terminal window, Reflection displays information about that command or item.
To create a custom toolbar with a button for changing the host functions associated with specific keys on your PC keyboard:
If you are converting the KEA SmartPad feature to a Reflection for UNIX and OpenVMS (RUO) toolbar, an unsupported mergetool, KEA2RUOmergetool-V1.3b-English.zip, is available from the Attachmate Support site. This tool was created to ease the migration from KEA SmartPad and Menu configurations to RUO toolbars or menus.
Note the following:
Customizing your Reflection keyboard enables you to associate keystrokes with actions, a process known as keyboard mapping. You can customize your keyboard to match a familiar product, to improve interactions with your host application, or to speed up your work.
To access keyboard mapping, click Setup > Keyboard Map to open the Keyboard Map Setup dialog box.
Use the Keyboard Map Setup dialog to map PC keystrokes to commands or to see how your keyboard is currently mapped.
Different colors are used for different purposes. Initially, all keys are either light gray, teal, or dimmed:
To see how a key on the PC is currently mapped, click the key on the PC keyboard representation. If the key is mapped to a terminal key, a key on the terminal keyboard representation turns dark gray. Use the same procedure to see what PC key is mapped to a specific terminal key. For example, de-select any keys that are currently selected (dark gray) on the PC keyboard representation, then select a key such as DO on the terminal keyboard. The PC keystrokes generated by the DO button will turn dark gray on the PC keyboard representation.
Here is an example that maps Shift+F12 to the DO key:
You can also map a PC key to transmit a string, launch a Reflection Macro, or execute a command. A command is a Reflection built-in command that controls menu items, terminal keys, or single VBA commands.
To Remove a mapping, on the representation of the PC keyboard, select the mapped key or combination of keys, and then click Remove.
The following section provides tips about converting KEA! keyboard maps to Reflection maps.
Note: This may be a hidden folder in Microsoft Windows.
PCKEY= "<name of key>", MAPTO="<option>", "<parameters>"
For example, if the sequence mapped in KEA! is:
PCKey="Alt+F1 [870]", MapTo="Sequence", Value="^[[037q"Follow these steps to map Alt+F1 in Reflection:
The characters EC will be displayed in the Text to send field. This represents the Escape characters: ^[
The full text should read: EC[037q
You can customize the Reflection menus by removing individual menu items, hiding the menu bar, adding menu items that perform standard Reflection tasks, or by creating menu items to run your own custom macros. To access this feature, click Setup > Menu.
For example, to remove the Keyboard Map command from the Setup menu, follow these steps.
Use Reflection to transfer files and data to and from a host computer using the Reflection drag-and-drop interface. This interface is similar to the KEA! Shuttle.
The default protocol is the Attachmate proprietary protocol, WRQ/Reflection. The host transfer program for this protocol is provided with all copies of Reflection and must be uploaded before you can use the WRQ/Reflection protocol. For more information about uploading the WRQ/Reflection file transfer protocol, see Technical Note 1475.
Reflection also supports several public domain protocols such as FTP, sFTP, Zmodem, Xmodem, and Kermit. KEA! supports several of these protocols as well. Reflection does not support Ymodem.
This example walks you through the process of transferring a file using the FTP support built into Reflection.
Reflection for UNIX and OpenVMS provides FTP file transfer support, but if you would rather transfer files using a dedicated FTP file transfer interface, you can access the Reflection FTP Client from the Programs > Reflection menu.
Reflection supports a variety of print options such as printing the display screen, VT host-initiated printing, and user-initiated printing.
To print what is displayed on the screen, click File > Print. In the Print dialog box, you can choose to print the screen or the content of the sessions display memory.
Many VT host applications can print to printers that are not attached to the host. This type of host-initiated printing may be called slave printing, logging, pass through printing, auto-print, or controller printing.
Typically, host-initiated printing involves selecting print from a host menu. To send a print job, the host transmits escape sequences to the terminal or terminal emulator, which signal that the print job should be forwarded to a printer. Reflection supports host-initiated printing and forwards the print job to the Windows default printer.
To change where the print job is sent, click File > Logging.
All host initiated printing is output to the device specified under “Log output to.”
To select a different Windows printer, click Print Setup and choose the appropriate printer from the Printer drop-down menu on the Print Setup dialog box. Or, you can print to a file by selecting Disk and specifying a file for output.
Note: The “Serial device” option is not used for normal printing, even if you have a serial printer attached to your machine. This option is only used for devices on serial ports, such as bar code readers, which need to send information back and forth between the host and the device, through Reflection.
In addition to host-initiated printing, you can also manually enable logging or Auto Print, which prints each line of text as soon as a line feed is received.
To enable logging:
To disable logging:
Tip: Make certain that you only clear the Logging on check box and not the Printer check box, under Log output to, when you turn off logging.
To make enabling and disabling logging quicker, you may want to create a button or map a key to toggle logging (Auto Print) on and off, rather than opening and closing the Logging dialog box each time.
To create a button to toggle logging on and off:
Once created, each time you click the Logging icon, the logging state is toggled.
Reflection provides you with powerful tools for automating your sessions. Tools like the macro recorder and event scheduler require no programming knowledge. In addition to these tools, Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), which is included with Reflection, provides access to an industry-standard scripting language and a full-featured development environment.
The macros you create in Reflection can be associated with a menu item, toolbar button, event, or keystroke. You can also customize VBA macros by editing them with the Microsoft Visual Basic Editor.
Existing KEA! macros and scripts should be re-recorded. Simple scripts can be re-recorded using the Reflection Macro recorder. More complex scripts should be rewritten in the Reflection Microsoft Visual Basic Editor.
This section walks you through creating two sample macros: a file transfer macro and an automated login macro.
This example shows how create a macro that performs a file transfer to an FTP host.
A new button appears on the active toolbar, labeled with the name of your macro. At this point, you can run and test your macro, but it has not yet been saved.
This example shows how to create a login macro.
Note: Unless you change the value of Save Passwords settings (Setup > View Settings), Reflection will not include your password in the recorded macro.
Follow these steps to test your login macro.
If the connection does not succeed, stop the macro by clicking Macro > Stop Macro. Disconnect from the host and re-record the login Macro following the steps above. You will be prompted to discard your previously recorded Login Macro and use the newly recorded macro.
Macros are stored as part of the Reflection settings file and are not saved until you save your settings file. Click File > Save to store.
Using Reflection’s Events feature you can associate events, such as “At a specific time of day,” with actions, such as transferring large amounts of data. The event is the trigger; the action is how Reflection responds.
The following example shows how to associate a VBA macro with a specific time to illustrate how you could use this feature in your own environment to schedule events during off-peak hours.
If you are familiar with Visual Basic for Applications, you can edit a recorded macro or create a new one using the Visual Basic Editor. To access the editor, click Macro > Visual Basic Editor. Or, to edit an existing macro, click Macro > Macros, select your macro, and then click Edit.
The Reflection API is extensively documented in the application programming help and in the User Guide.
Reflection for UNIX and OpenVMS provides the following Secure Shell encryption (SSH), SSH/TLS Telnet encryption, and Kerberos client features. To access the security features, click Connection > Connection Setup, and then click Security.