HATS for Host Publisher users

If you are an experienced user of IBM® WebSphere® Host Publisher, you will need to adjust your approach in order to develop projects with HATS. Here are some key differences between the HATS and Host Publisher approaches to developing projects:
  • There is no HATS server install. The HATS executable code, known as the HATS runtime, is embedded in each HATS .ear when it is exported in HATS Toolkit. HATS projects also allow you to have multiple .war files within an .ear file.
  • Host Publisher does not transform host screens or present them to the user; rather it retrieves specific information from host applications and displays that information. While you can create a HATS project that performs this function, the basic function of HATS is to transform host screens and present them to the user. Of course, you can enhance your HATS project to combine or skip screens, and combine data from multiple host applications. HATS enables you to work from the ground up, and makes it easy to add to your project over time.
  • The functions of your Host Publisher project were configured explicitly; you controlled the behavior of your users by specifying the host interactions that they can perform. In the rules-based approach used by HATS, you configure rules by which your HATS project transforms whatever host screens the user accesses, and processes the user's interactions with those screens. Where your Host Publisher project enabled the user to perform a limited set of host interactions, your HATS project applies its rules to handle any sequence of interactions your user performs. HATS enables you to define how freely the user can interact with the host; interaction can range from a free-form host emulator experience to a completely dictated screen navigation.
  • In Host Publisher, all host interactions are performed within macros that are encapsulated into Integration Objects. In HATS, you can use macros for many purposes, but they are not required for the basic transformation of host screens. In Host Publisher, an Integration Object requires a connect macro and a disconnect macro, as well as the data macro that is used to extract data from the host application. In HATS, a macro can be run on a host to which the HATS application is already connected. Thus in HATS, Integration Objects do not always require connect and disconnect macros.
Note:
If you created Host Publisher Integration Objects using a modified template, you will need to re-create the Integration Objects by making similar modifications to the HATS Integration Object template, and then regenerating the Integration Objects from macros. For more information about using templates to customize Integration Objects, see Integration Objects - advanced topics.
If you are importing a Host Publisher V4.0 application (versus a Host Publisher V4.0.1 application):
  • Remote Integration Object (RIO) support has been removed. All Host Publisher V4 applications contained the RIO servlet. If you import a Host Publisher V4 application that contains RIO support, the RIO servlet is removed, and you will receive a migration message that this has been done. If you used RIO to access Integration Objects remotely, you need to modify those applications to use Web services. See Developing Web services for more information.
  • If you try to import Host Publisher applications that contain EJB 1.0 support, you receive an error message that indicates that the application contains EJB 1.0 support. If you want to import the application, you must go back to Host Publisher Studio and regenerate your EJB Access Beans using the EJB 1.1 specification level, and repackage the application using Host Publisher Application Integrator.