Tech Tip: Browser-based Output
Most people in the MultiValue community agree that green-screens are our death. But you might be caught in the transition from past millennium to current millennium re-work. Your users are still stuck with antiquated green-screens but desperately want newer ways of viewing things. Now there are many fine, modern, MultiValue reporting options out there. But maybe, for reasons outside of your control, you are not able to purchase them just yet. Well, take heart, for there is a dirt-simple technique that can provide your users with at least a smidgeon of what they really want.
Take the old SORT report that goes to the green-screen. First, if you hit one too many [Enter] keys, you can't scroll back. If the report exceeds the width of 80 characters, you either flip to (unusable) columnar format or get lines wrapping past the right side of the screen, making the report somewhat unreadable.
All your users want to do is see the entire report, or maybe just the totals lines, without having to print the thing to paper.
The solution to this is surprisingly easy. Turn the ENGLISH/INFORM/REVTRIEVE (whatever) into HTML and either email the report to the user as an attachment or send them a link to view it.
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