Business Computer Design [2] (BCD) has released Presto, a new 5250 green screen application modernisation tool that creates a browser interface over RPG, Cobol and menu applications. UK and Ireland distributor is SoftLanding Europe [3].

Presto includes an interactive development environment for customising web-enabled screens by adding images, graphs, links, Google Maps, drop-down boxes, web services, AJAX calls and viewing data from other systems and platforms. BCD stresses that 5250 applications are deployed to the web with no changes to RPG, Cobol, or DDS source code and without the need to recompile any programs.

The company says that users do not need to have the display file source since existing programs are unaffected. Original green screen applications will still be available. 5250 screens are dynamically presented as web pages with no 5250 OLTP as Presto uses batch processing.

No PC client is needed so if a change is made all users have it instantly. Presto uses the free HTTP server powered by Apache included with every Power i and BCD says that users can start the pre-configured Apache web server instance, enter an IP address and they’re up and running.

Presto supports multiple languages and also provides "environments" that are sets of global settings for a group of programs and screens on a client system that would typically comprise an application. Environment versioning allows ISVs to make a single application have multiple customised presentations so each client can have a separate, tailored environment.

Presto can be used in conjunction with other offerings from BCD including WebSmart, Nexus Portal, Clover Query and Catapult and can be bought on either a base or unlimited user-licence basis.