Patent ID: 7765254
Filing Date: 2010-07-27
Classification: G06F,H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for communicating with an application, the method comprising: receiving, by a user agent on a user computer, a user request for an application via an application layer protocol and responsively submitting a request to an intermediary computer; identifying the application by a server application of the intermediary computer, the identifying being responsive to the user request; launching an integration object on the intermediary computer responsive to receiving the request by the intermediary computer, the integration object including a macro manager; requesting the application by the server application of the intermediary computer; launching an instance of the application by a host computer responsive to the request from the intermediary computer, wherein the application is not configured to interact over a network via an application layer protocol and wherein the launching includes an operating system of the host computer creating a process identifier for the instance of the application; sending the process identifier to the intermediary computer by a server module of the host computer; retrieving a first form by a macro manager of the intermediary computer and sending the first form to the user agent by the macro manager, wherein the first form emulates a first screen of the application and wherein the sending to the user agent by the macro manager includes sending the process identifier in the first form; rendering the first form by the user agent and receiving user input data for the first form by the user agent via an application layer protocol; submitting data for the first form by the user agent to the intermediary computer, the data including the user input; finding a macro corresponding to the first form by the macro manager of the intermediary computer and extracting the data for the first form by the macro and the macro manager of the intermediary computer, wherein the macro identifies input and output fields for the first screen and how to trigger processing by the legacy application; constructing a message containing the process identifier and the extracted data for the first form by a message constructor of the intermediary computer and sending the message to the host computer; receiving the message by the host computer and parsing the process identifier from the message by a mapper application of the host computer, wherein an operating system on the host computer is configured to provide messages to applications responsive to hardware input events, the messages being in a predetermined hardware event message format, and wherein the method includes: converting the message received from the intermediary computer, wherein the converting is by a message manager application of the host computer using an application programming interface of the operating system and the converting includes converting the message to the predetermined hardware event message format; and posting the message in the predetermined hardware event message format to the instance of the application by the message manager application of the host computer responsive to the process identifier extracted from the received form data by the intermediary computer, such that the message appears to the application as if the message is responsive to a hardware input event.