1) |
What are the benefits of DCS? |
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DCS 9 is designed for optimal performance and flexibility in a heterogeneous computing environment, addressing
concerns of users, IT staff and systems integrators. Users will appreciate the responsiveness of simultaneous
sessions, a versatile display engine and extensive configurability of preferences and productivity features.
For the IT staff, DCS 9 simplifies application maintenance and training by integrating all the necessary emulations
and connectors in a single running instance of the program. The product is extensible via optional DynaComm Client
Options, so different site requirements can be met within the same product, without purchasing unnecessary components.
For Systems Integrators, DCS 9 provides browser integration to host systems, OLE compliance, ActiveX sessions documents,
a Visual Basic interface and an extended DynaComm Script Language that allows event-driven processes to monitor multiple
connected sessions.
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2) |
Is there a way to configure DCS 9 to look like a dumb terminal—full screen, no
scrollbars, no menus or toolbars?
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Yes. Each of these items can be disabled to make the screen look less like a Windows application and more like
a terminal device.
On the Session menu, select Properties to display the Session Properties dialog. Click the Displays tab and then
click the General tab. Select Off for Horizontal and Vertical in the Scrollbars option group. Clear Terminal border
to disable, if desired. Save the session to retain these values.
On the View menu, select Toolbar to display the Toolbar dialog. disable all the toolbars. Disabling the menus can
be done with the Menu Editor by choosing Tools > Customize. In this case, you may want to disable only the Session
menu bar, so no menus are displayed when a session window is active. Go to Tools > Options and verify that the Save
Application Size option is selected, maximize DCS 9 and the session window and exit. Then start DCS 9, open this
session and choose View > Full Screen to go to full screen mode.
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3) |
Can I modify the default toolbar? |
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There are several available floating toolbars included with the product, only one of which is enabled by default.
Choose View > Toolbar to select which toolbars are displayed. You can customize each of these toolbars as well. To do
this, enable the toolbar so that it appears in DCS 9, then choose Tools > Customize and select the Toolbar tab. You can
then drag default or custom buttons from the Customizedialog and drop them on the toolbar to add them. Complete
instructions on modifying the toolbars are available in the online help. Additional documentation is also available
for application administrators regarding propagating menu and toolbar modifications stored in the Registry to multiple
workstations.
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4) |
Is the scrollback history buffer configurable? |
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Yes. The maximum size is 9999 lines, but smaller values are recommended. Go to Session > Properties, click the
Displays tab and then the History tab. As you change the setting for History Buffer Size, the approximate memory
usage for that size of history buffer is indicated.
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5) |
Can I change the printer font used for screen printouts? |
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Yes. On the File menu, select Print Setup to display the Print dialog. Change the printer font setting in this dialog.
The default font used for printing is correlated to the screen font. However, you can change this to a specific font
selected from the printer fonts installed with Windows. You can also choose the font size and items to be included with
the header and/or footer such as current time, date, page number or session name. These print settings are valid for
print request from DCS, including screen, script file or text document prints.
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6) |
How can I disable the confirmation prompts that appear when saving, disconnecting or exiting? |
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The Save changes to session? and the Are you sure you want to disconnect from the
Host? confirmation dialogs are presented when you close a session, disconnect the session or do something
that causes one of these. These two prompts can be configured on the Session Properties’ General tab and saved
with the session file. Alternatively, you can disable these options for all sessions by default under Tools > Options
and the Prompt disconnect & save when closing option.
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7) |
How do I modify colors in a session? |
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Go to Session > Properties, click the Emulations tab and then the Attributes tab. The host attributes supported by
the emulation are listed in the Host listbox. When you select a host attribute
with the mouse, its current attribute mappings are displayed, including the foreground and background colors. Modify
the colors of the selected host attribute as desired and click OK. The attribute
mappings can be stored to an ACM file for later use and automatically loaded if the session is saved.
To enable color mapping with the VT-Series emulation, uncheck the Allow ANSI colors
checkbox on the General subtab. Emulations which support ANSI color extensions do not allow the user to map colors, but
other attributes can still be modified. Similarly, to enable color mapping with the Tandem 6530 emulation, uncheck
the Allow host to change the color checkbox on the General tab.
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8) |
How do I make a trace? |
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There are a couple of trace types that can be made and played back in DCS 9. For most situations, a binary trace of
incoming data only is what’s desired. To set up the trace properties, open the session, go to Session >
Properties and then click the Trace tab to set up the properties of the trace. Click on the Select button to select
a filename for the trace data to be stored. Then select the Start Trace on
Connect checkbox and click OK. (For TN3270, TN5250 or Tandem 6530, also
elect the Block Mode checkbox.)
The Start Trace on Connect option is a good idea since properties of the terminal
may be negotiated at the initial connection. If this option is not selected, choose Session > Trace > Start to
start the trace. You can pause or stop the trace using the Session > Trace > Pause or Session > Trace >
Stop menu items.
To play back the trace, open the session, go to the Session > Properties, click the Connectors tab and select the
Trace Play connector. Use the Select
button to select the trace file to be replayed and set the other parameters as desired. When you click
OK, the trace is replayed.
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9) |
DCS 9 works fine for one user, but when a new user logs on the same workstation and launches DCS 9, an error
message says you do not have a valid license or Registry entries are corrupt and the product needs to be reinstalled.
Why is this?
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DCS 9 installs per user account, storing each user’s settings independently in the Registry. To preserve
administrator-defined functionality and settings, new users have no access unless it has been set up by the
administrator.
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10) |
Using the Tandem 6530 emulation, I cannot get SHIFT+ALT+F6 to execute SHIFT+F16 on the host. |
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The key combinations ALT+F6 and SHIFT+ALT+F6 are not mapped to be F16 and SF16, respectively, since these sequences
are being intercepted by Windows. Instead, DCS 9 is mapped by default to use ALT+6 and SHIFT+ALT+F6 as F16 and SF16.
An alternative method for accessing F11 through F16 and SF11 through SF16 is to use the key combinations CTRL+F1 to
CTRL+F6 and SHIFT+CTRL+F1 to SHIFT+CTRL+F6. This keyboard mapping is available by default in the current version of
DCS.
To use the Tandem.kbm file in your session, download the file to your Maps
folder within DCS 8. For instance, if you installed DCS 8 with the default settings, the path would be “C:\Program
Files\Futuresoft\DCSeries\Maps”. Launch DCS 9 and open your session file. Go to Session > Properties, click the
Emulations tab and select the Keyboard tab under the Tandem 6530 emulator. Click the arrow in the listbox and select
the Tandem.kbm file. Click OK to accept the changes and save your session from
the File menu.
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11) |
Will my scripts written in earlier DynaComm products run in DCS 9? |
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Yes, with slight modifications. Recompile the source files (DCP extension) in DCS 9. Commands that have been deleted
or changed will be indicated by the compiler.
DCS 9 provides additional flexibility such as multiple concurrent sessions in one application instance. Therefore,
you may choose to make script changes to take advantage of these features. For more information, see the
Converting Scripts from DynaComm Asynchronous to DCS 9 or
the Converting Scripts from DynaComm/Elite and DynaComm/OpenConnect to
DCS 9 white papers, which list some common conversion issues.
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12) |
Can you change the session font used for a particular session? |
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Yes. On the Session menu, select Properties to display the Session Properties dialog. Click the Displays tab and
then click the Font tab. Select the Specify Font option and use the Choose button to select from the fixed-width
fonts available with Windows. The Autosize font to fit session window option works best with fonts that offer a
full range of sizes.
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13) |
How can multiple users on an NT Workstation use DCS 9? |
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Install DCS 9 with the multi-user option selected in the install program and every user will be able to access
DCS 9.
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