Technical Notes

Beginning in EXTRA! X-treme 9.0, you can configure the settings that control the Productivity Features in both newly created and migrated host sessions. This technical note describes the options available to you when configuring the global control of Productivity Features.

Feature Overview

In EXTRA! X-treme 8.0, Productivity Features were added to provide a new set of functionality, including Recent Typing, Scratch Pad, Microsoft Office Tools, Screen History, Auto Complete, Auto Expand, and Spell Checking. Also, a Productivity Pane was added that enables users to access many of these features directly from the open host session.

By default, in EXTRA! X-treme 8.0, the Productivity Features are enabled for newly-created host sessions and are automatically added to existing host sessions that were created in earlier EXTRA! versions as the sessions are loaded (migrated host sessions).

New Control Functionality in EXTRA! X-treme 9.0

Typically EXTRA! administrators want control over when and how the Productivity Features are displayed to their users. Some users do not like the Productivity Pane to be displayed, because it uses valuable real estate on the screen.

Beginning in EXTRA! X-treme 9.0, as an administrator, you can use new and existing functionality to control the Productivity Feature settings for your users:

• Use the EXTRA! 9.0 default settings; Productivity Features are enabled for both newly-created host sessions and added to existing host sessions as the sessions are loaded.
• Enable or disable Productivity Features, including the Productivity Pane, on a feature by feature basis when you evaluate or install EXTRA! X-treme 9.0 and create new host sessions.
• Easily enable or disable the features at a later date.
• Configure migrated host sessions (7.11 or earlier) to load without enabling Productivity Features.

This technical note describes how to configure Productivity Features for two scenarios:

Creating New Host Sessions in EXTRA! X-treme 9.0

In EXTRA! 9.0 when new EXTRA! sessions are created, Productivity Features are governed by settings in the template file (*.edp) for the session type. Template files are based on the host connection type selected and are called 3270.EDP, 5250.EDP, and ASYNC.EDP. They are located in the \Program Files\Attachmate\EXTRA!\Sessions\ENU\Template directory for the English language.

Default *.edp File

*.edp files contain the following default values in the [Productivity] section.

Note: Not all settings are available for all connection types, and not all settings will be present in all of the template files.

Disabling Productivity Features in the *.edp File

To modify the default settings to completely disable Productivity Features in a newly created host session in EXTRA! 9.0, edit the settings in red (bold) below in the appropriate template file (*.edp).

These settings will apply to newly-created sessions only and will not affect existing sessions that were created previously and saved.

Any combination of settings can be used to control the level of features desired. Since the values for the Productivity Features are saved in a specific EDP file, you can configure how the Productivity Features are configured for each host connection on a session by session basis.

Migrating Existing Host Sessions

The behavior of Productivity Features in migrated sessions varies depending on the EXTRA! version you are migrating from and to.

Migrating from 7.11 or earlier to 8.0

When a host session that was created and used in an earlier version of EXTRA! (for example, EXTRA! Enterprise 7.11 or earlier) is opened in EXTRA! X-treme 8.0, the [Productivity] section is automatically added to the *.edp file with the default values, thus enabling the Productivity Features and the Productivity Pane.

Migrating from 7.11 or earlier to 9.0

As an EXTRA! administrator, you can create a transform file (*.mst) using the Custom Installation Wizard (CIW) that will add the default values for Productivity Feature settings for migrated sessions (versions 7.11 or earlier) to the registry when the transform is applied to the base install of EXTRA! 9.0.

When a user opens a session from EXTRA! 7.11 or earlier, EXTRA! checks the registry for Productivity Feature default values, as written by the *.mst file created in the Custom Installation Wizard. If no registry values controlling the Productivity Features are found, the software behaves as before and enables all Productivity Features. Any default values found in the registry are applied to the session and saved in the session *.edp file for future reference. The Productivity Features are governed by the session profile thence forward.

On screen 14 of 15 (shown below), the administrator can Customize the Productivity Settings for a Migrated Session (sessions that do not currently have a [Productivity] section).

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Note: If the Set Defaults for Migrated Sessions check box is cleared, migrated sessions will start with all the Productivity Features enabled, as it does in EXTRA! X-treme 8.0.

Each setting listed below typically has a Yes default setting. The settings are written to the registry [HKLM\Software\Attachmate\Extra!\WorkstationUser\Preferences] by the Custom Installation Wizard. You'll notice that the settings listed match the features that you can configure in the Custom Installation Wizard, as shown in the above graphic.

When EXTRA! launches, it looks for a default value for each Productivity Feature setting in the registry that it uses as a default when it can't find a like setting in the session profile.

Note: These settings are added to the registry by the Custom Installation Wizard only through a custom transform file. These settings are not included in the release MSI file (ATMEE90.MSI) used for the installation of EXTRA!.

These settings do not apply to new sessions that are created with EXTRA! X-treme 9.0 as the Productivity settings for new sessions are governed by the session templates (*.edp files) as they were in EXTRA! X-treme 8.0. See Creating New Host Sessions in EXTRA! X-treme 9.0 for detailed information.

Note: The "Show Productivity Pane" setting is not available in the EXTRA! 9.0 Custom Installation Wizard; use the "Enable Productivity Pane" setting for the same result.

Migrating from 8.x to 9.0

If a user opens a session in EXTRA! X-treme 9.0 that was created using EXTRA! X-treme 8.X, the existing productivity settings as specified in the [Productivity] section of the session profile (*.edp) are honored. To maintain the existing 8.x behavior in 9.0, do nothing, as the sessions will migrate seamlessly.

However, if you want to use the Custom Installation Wizard to control the behavior of a migrated session, manually delete the existing [Productivity] section in the *.edp files created in EXTRA! X-treme 8.0 and follow the steps in the Migrating from 7.11 or earlier to 9.0 section.