Another way to give customers or users access to your applications on the Web is to provide runtime services through the ACUCOBOL-GT Web Plug-In.
Using this approach, you set up a Web site and embed or link in your ACUCOBOL-GT application. You then instruct your customers or users to license the ACUCOBOL-GT Web Plug-in.
With the plug-in and runtime in place, your customers and users can visit your Web site at any time and launch your application inside the browser window. This gives them all the features and functions of your application, along with the features and functions of the browser.
This option is similar to Option 2 in that it allows users to launch applications from your Web site, and you (the COBOL developer) choose whether the application runs locally on the client machine, remotely on a server machine (using AcuConnect), or some combination of the two.
The main difference is that with this method, the plug-in embeds the main application window in the browser and gives it access to library routines that can be used to communicate with the browser. At your option, you can enhance your COBOL program to give your end user access to other Web pages and the ability to send e-mail messages, conduct Web searches, and execute JavaScript. You determine how much functionality you want to give to your end users, and you code those functions into your application by passing URLs (uniform resource locators) to the Web browser with the W$GETURL library function.
You can also permit end users to access Vision data files on other machines. The machines housing the data must be running AcuServer.