Pimp My Font Size, Win a No-Prize
October 29, 2008 Good-day, Joe
I have a problem with duplicate 5250 sessions. On our sessions, we change the default screen display font to another font size, such as Courier New. However when we start a second session with the same iSeries Access workstation profile, the screen font reverts back to its default font size: a regular IBM3270 font. What’s going on here and why can’t I use a different font size on multiple sessions? –Jean-Pierre To solve this problem, I went with my default philosophy for debugging computer issues. IF I CAN DUPLICATE IT, I CAN SOLVE IT!!! Unfortunately things don’t always work out as planned. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s the issue and how I tried to solve it. Problem de Jour With iSeries Access for Windows, you can change the default display font for your 5250 green screens. You do this by selecting Edit→Appearance→Font Size from the PC5250 menu bar. This brings up the Select Display Font screen, where you can change your display font to a small number of other fixed and automatic font sizes. Once changed, your PC5250 window will display all its text with the new font size. Unfortunately, this process has a few flaws with the PC5250 program that comes with iSeries Access for Windows V5R4M0. Here are the kinks I found with selecting a new display font. They all mirror what Jean-Pierre found so I’m assuming these are either quirks with the emulator or there’s some strange IBM reason this doesn’t work for more than one session.
After doing some research inside iSeries Access and on the Internet, I couldn’t find any solution to Jean-Pierre’s problem. So I’m going to do what I sometimes do in situations like this. I’m escalating the problem to the most intelligent, 5250-savvy, brave, and, dare I say, handsome readers in world. YOU!!!! The readers who follow my Admin Alert column every week. I’m officially launching a new contest to help Jean-Pierre with his problem and to explain to everyone what the heck is going on with the display font size in iSeries Access 5250. If you think you know the answer to these pressing questions, send it over to me via the IT Jungle Contact page. For every person who can explain why this function is more brain-dead than the U.S. presidential administration and Congress, I’ll give you a shot at immortality and rare gifts by doing the following:
So write in and tell me what’s wrong with Select Display Format (why I can’t change it in maximized format and why it doesn’t hold for more than one session) and I’ll send the answers over to Jean-Pierre. Thanks for playing our game. –Joe
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