From: emily@VNET.IBM.COM ("Emily D. Goodin")
Newsgroups: comp.sys.novell
Subject: Using Novell NetWare Panels
Date: 10 Apr 92 12:34:14 GMT

I asked a question awhile back concerning the use of Novell NetWare
panels, and listed some alternatives in user interface "look & feel"
for a product I work on (LANRES/VM and /MVS).
Here are the responses I received.

Thanks again everyone for your input!

 - Em

Emily Goodin  607/752-2863         | Client/Server Usability
G54G/M21M-A8 Endicott, NY, USA     | IBM Corporation
emily@vnet.ibm.com                 | GDLVM7/GOODINE IBMMAIL/USIBMBW2

=====================================================================
From: weber@rhrk.uni-kl.de   Christoph Weber-Fahr
                             Universitaet Kaiserslautern  KIT/IVS

>Right now for its LAN admin functions LANRES uses a command interface
>to let you perform those tasks (adding users, changing passwords,
>etc.) from the VM host. We're debating how we might want to handle it
>if we were to provide a host-based panel interface to do these tasks.
>Some alternatives we've tossed around include:

> 1 - "ignoring" NetWare's panel interface implementation and sticking
>     to an interface that complies with the Common User Access (CUA)
>     architecture, primarily trying to make it comfortable for those
>     accustomed to our host interfaces.

Hm.. I haved worked at several times with these IBM panel interfaces
(am I right ? I used DIAL and IESERV) and found them very incomfortable.
What I disliked most was the slow reaction and the screen-based
procession of the Input (which has many disatvantages compared to the
keybased processing commonly used on PC's and many Unix Systems).

> 2 - trying to make the host-driven interface match as closely as
>     possible the NetWare interface, so a NetWare administrator could
>     "feel at home" doing the same activities from the host that he
>     or she normally does from the NetWare console. If there were a
>     conflict between NetWare and CUA, we'd go with NetWare's way.

Ok, I'm not an IBM mainframe expert, but I doubt, that it is possible
to create a Netware Look and Feel with a screen-terminal host, which
processes whole screens. You will most probably end with a system that
unifies the problems of both systems and loses their advantages.
I can, e.g.,not imagine a 3270 that opens a window with a list of Users,
when I press the Insert key, lets me two times scroll up & down 60 Users,
select one by the enter key and all that within 10 seconds.

> 3 - a compromise: an in-between interface that conforms to CUA (as
>     we IBM products should strive to do!) but that gives some of the
>     look and feel of NetWare.

I would strongly vote for that. You could save enough of the Netware Look
to create that "Feel At Home", but could adjust it's functionality to
those 3270 Interfaced Hosts.
Additional to that your typical mainframe user most probably has at least
as much experience with IBM's CUA as with the Netware panels (If he likes
them or not :-).
To make a long story short - your Supervisor should see enough Netware
lookalikes to know WHAT she does and enough IBM CUA to know HOW she can
do that, perhaps additional supported by a similar functionality of
both systems.

>I guess the main question I have is, do you LIKE the NetWare interface?

In general, yes. It is consistent and easy to use.

>Should we try to look like NetWare? When I look at it, in some cases I
>think I might organize it differently if it were me, but that may be
>based on just my own past experiences. I haven't seen much discussion
>of the panels here on the USENET;

This is not totally correct. One weak point of Netware is it's lack of
powerful command-line oriented tools to perform complex tasks on multiple
items. There are some public domain utilities, which close the greatest
gaps (e.g. queue management, group handling), but there are a lot of
great poblems. Those problems are indeed discussed here, (and I would
also recommend you the bit.listserv.novell group or mailing list, which
carries some more traffic on novell) and are a pain for some supervisors.
Just try to modify a group of 140 Users' password expiration interval
without changing other settings...
I assume your typical customer manages enterprise wide systems with lots
of users, and in such an environment those features can gain much more
relevance than in the average some-twenty-stations-LAN.

> a couple reasons could be that you DO
>really like it (and negatives get more 'press' than positives!) or, you
>aren't actually using the panels to do your administration - you've
>written your own execs, maybe.

If this Unversity could afford the development system I had indeed -
at least for documentation purposes :-)

=========================================================================
From: George Mansoor <vfoao07h@VAX.CSUN.EDU>  Cal State Northridge

I do like the Novell Administration Panels.  I find them comfortable,
intuitive, and easy to use.  I have written some of my own execs to do some
administration, but this was for 1) things that needed to be automated or run
from the command line, or 2) things that couldn't be done from the Novell
panels.

Who are you going to be marketing this product to - VM/MVS people or Netware
people.  I don't know about most places, but at least on my campus there are
two distinct camps, each being passionate about their environment.

=========================================================================
From: CAROLINE RUMSEY <SDJY@VAX5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU>   Cornell Univ.

Maybe the answer depends on the habitual environment of the person doing the
net administration.  I only work with micros - no vm hosts.  It would simplify
my life, if I had to administer the vm host, to have the net admin stuff all
look more or less similar.

On the other hand, someone who comes from the vm world might prefer your sw
to have an interface similar to whatever they usually encounter in the vm
world.

=========================================================================
From: jntlp@acad3.alaska.edu  Tom Pittman  LAN Manager
                              University of Alaska Fairbanks

My vote?  Assuming you are keeping the command line interface and are looking
to add a "panel" interface (or are you looking to REPLACE the command line?),
then I vote for CUA.  Most of us have had enough CUA exposure that it won't be
difficult to pick it up for net admin.  I think Novell's interface is okay (I'd
give it a C+ or maybe a B-) but I can't see it lasting.  To me its age is
showing and I wish it was evolving toward something better.

I might go for the compromise interface if it was done carefully.  It is easy
to conceive of an interface that isn't quite CUA and isn't quite Novell, thus
it isn't quite apealing to either camp.  On the other hand, if you could make
it work for both (not really a compromise but a combining of the two) then I
can see it being pretty nice.

=========================================================================
From: "CLARKE, DEFRANCE" <CLARKE@uservx.plk.af.mil>

I have been a Novell Netware administrator on fairly small LAN (60 users)
for a couple of years now, and for the most part I like the Novell menu
look and feel.  Sometimes the options are buried too deep and the upper
names are not sufficiently indicative of options below.  On the other hand it
definitely helps when most options have different first characters so th ey can
be selected with one alpha key.

I feel there is also a definite place for command line utilities because they
are amenable to batch files and piping.  A really neat feature I have seen
some places (not Novell) is for menu utilities to have a script writing option
that translates menu options to equivalent command line commands.

=========================================================================
From: nickh@Calvin.EDU (Nick Hengeveld)  Calvin College

That's a tough question.  I've gotten quite accustomed to using the
NetWare-style utilities, and I don't have any major complaints although
as you mentioned, there are some things I might do differently.  If I
was in a position of using an environment with NetWare and LANRES, I
expect it would be easier to adapt to LANRES if it used the NetWare
panels.