Java client

Branch Transformation Toolkit components that run on Java(TM) clients interact with each other to provide the Java client navigation function, pass client requests to the application presentation layer, and enable Java clients to present a response to the request.

The following components run on Java clients:
Contexts
A context is the container for the data elements needed by a business entity such as a user or branch. Contexts have a hierarchy to enable these business entities to share common data. For example, in a branch each teller would have a context that contains data about the teller but they would all share the branch context, which would contain data about the branch. The branch context is the parent and each teller context is a child in the relationship.
Formatters
A formatter transforms a string into data in a context or data in a context to a String. This enables an application to move data into and out of the context hierarchy and to create messages to send to a host, financial device, or service in a format understood by the message's destination. The toolkit provides an extensive set of the most commonly needed formatters for financial service applications including EBCDIC, date, numeric, packed, binary, and other formatters.
Data elements
A data element is a field that contains a value or a collection of other data elements. Certain data elements are type-aware. The typed data elements represent business objects such as Date, ProductNumber, and Money. Each typed data element has an associated property descriptor, which provides information about the data such as its type, its validator, and its set of converters.
Flows
A flow is a particular route through a business process or presentation sequence in the application presentation layer. A flow processor handles a specific flow and it is typically with many branches and compound and complex conditions on those branches. Within a flow, there is a sequence of states. These states can have actions. An action is a task that the flow processor performs such as display a view or invoke a business process in the application logic layer.
Externalizers
An externalizer is an object factory that uses definitions in an external file to instantiate a specific toolkit entity. The toolkit provides externalizers for contexts, data elements, formatters, services, and flow processors. The definition files are ASCII files using XML syntax. This makes configuring and customizing these defined objects (or implementing new ones) possible with something as simple as a basic text editor although the Development Workbench provides an easier and more controlled environment for this editing.
Events
An event is how components within the application presentation layer communicate with each other. A notifier is the sender of an event. A handler, as the receiver of that event, is responsible for consuming the event or propagating it to other handlers. An Event Manager acts as the event controller between notifiers and handlers to manage both local and remote events.
Exceptions
A toolkit exception enhances the standard Java exception mechanism to facilitate applications accessing information about the exception.
Visual beans
The visual beans facilitate the development of a GUI for Java clients by adding features and properties to normal visual beans to support financial applications such as date fields, numeric fields, or account data entry fields. The navigation controller provides a way for the Java clients to have a multiple view GUI.
Desktop
The Desktop is a fully configurable desktop for Java clients. It contains most of the features commonly required of this type of user interface. It includes many common UI features and can by dynamically personalized to the current user.
Operations
An operation is what Java clients use to launch business processes in the application logic layer. An invoker maps the client operation to the business process.
Generic Pool
The Generic Pool service enables multiple client operations to share certain objects (classes and services), which makes the objects reusable. This reuse reduces the average time to execute these operations and also reduces the garbage collection work.
Trace Facility
The Trace Facility provides a way to see what is happening with an application while it is running. The information it logs can be used to solve problems during development and during runtime.
Financial device services
The Branch Transformation Toolkit provides services to access the most commonly used financial devices in financial service applications, including financial printers, check readers, magnetic stripe readers, chip card devices, and passbook printers. Financial device services allow applications to access devices that are compliant with WOSA/XFS and IBM(R) LANDP(R) protocols. The toolkit also supplies 100% Java access to specific financial devices following the current specifications of the J/XFS Forum.
JXFS Service
The JXFS Service enables applications to access devices that use J/eXtensions for Financial Services (J/XFS). The JXFS Service uses the typical interface between applications and J/XFS devices: Device Control (DC) and Device Manager (DM).
LANDP MSR/E Device
The LANDP MSR/E Device service enables applications to access a magnetic stripe reader and encoder (MSR/E).
WOSA Device
The WOSA Device service enables applications to use WOSA/XFS to access financial devices. These devices include financial printers, identification cards, and teller assist units