Keyboard Plugin

Webulator/400 provides a browser plugin file that allows the browser to map the keyboard similiar to a green screen. This option will allow the user to press AS/400 AID keys (e.g., Enter, F1 through F24) without having to use the mouse to press browser submit buttons.

There are two versions of the plugin shipped with Webulator/400. The first, npwsky16.dll is for Microsoft Windows 3.1 and the second, npwsky32.dll is for Microsoft Windows 95/NT.

Supported Browsers

Because keyboard support is implemented as a Netscape plugin, it is platform specific and must be tested with each browser. The supported browsers are:

Windows 3.x
- Netscape Navigator 3.0
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0
Windows 95/NT
- Netscape Navigator 3.0
- Netscape Communicator 4.0
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0

Installing The Plugin

Locating the Plugin Files

The browser plugin files have a .dll extension and are shipped in the /wbl/plugins directory. You must use the Npwsky16.dll file on Windows 3.1 machines and the Npwsky32.dll file for Windows 95/NT machines. You may either copy these files directly from the shipped directory or you may wish to copy these files to a directory that is accessible to your AS/400 Web Server if you wish to distribute the plugin files using a browser.
In addition, you may want to check the I/Net's Support site for the latest available plugin files.

Copy the Plugin file

Place the appropriate DLL into your browser's plugins directory. The plugins directory exists below the directory where your browser program file (EXE) is. The exact directory depends on which browser you use and how you installed it.
Some example directories are:

"c:\Program Files\Netscape\Navigator\Programs\plugins"
"c:\Program Files\Microsoft Internet\plugins"
"c:\netscape\plugins"

Close Your Browser

You must close your browser before the next step. The plugin will not be recognized until you close your browser and restart it.

Make Sure the Browser Recognizes the Plugin

Restart your browser and choose Help|About plugins from the menu. If you are using Netscape Navigator 3.0, you should see an entry that says I/NET Webulator/400 Keyboard plugin. If you are using another browser, you should see an entry that says application/x-webulator400-keys. If you do not see one of these entries, your browser does not recognize the plugin and you may have copied the DLL to the wrong directory.

Using the Plugin

For usability, it is recommended that you enable javascript for any webulator urls for which you plan to use the keyboard plugin. This will attempt to automatically set the keyboard focus to the correct input field, reducing your need to use the mouse.

The following list is all the eligible AS/400 keys and their respective mappings:

Enter - Enter key
F1 through F12 - F1 through F12 keys
F13 through F24 - Shift F1 through Shift F12 keys
Page Up - Page Up Key
Page Down - Page Down Key
Attention - Esc key
System Request - Shift Esc Key

In addition, the following browser keys will be remapped when using the keyboard plugin.

Scroll browser contents down - Ctrl Page Down instead of Page Down
Scroll browser contents up - Ctrl Page Up instead of Page Up
New line inside multi-line text field - Ctrl Enter instead of Enter

You will now see a combo box, a push button and the Webulator/400 keyboard icon when using the plugin. The combo-box contains the virtual keys you have defined for the current URL. You can still limit the keys available to a user or change descriptions through this mechanism.

TroubleShooting

There are several steps to configure and install this plugin and if any are not correct, it will not work. Fortunately, once you have the plugin correctly installed for a given browser, you should not need to worry about it in the future.

The browser does not show the plugin in Help|About

Make sure you COMPLETELY shut down the browser and restart it. If you leave even one browser window open, it will not recognize the plugin.

Make sure you have the correct version of the DLL. If you are using a 16-bit browser, you must have the plugin for Windows 3.x. If you are using a 32-bit browser, you must have the plugin for Windows 95/NT.

Check to see if your browser is on the list of supported browsers. Because this plugin is platform specific, it will not work with all browsers.

Make sure you copied the DLL into the proper directory.

The browser says "Plugin Not Loaded"

The browser may not be able to find the plugin.wky file. Make sure it is in the document root and that it is available to the browser. You can check the access log to see if the server was able to successfully send it.