Notes about Host Explorer vs. McGill

This upgrade of the Technical Services Workstation includes an upgrade of our current version of McGill 2.5.x. This upgrade is essential because CLARR does not work with McGill.

The McGill product / company was sold to Hummingbird Corp. The new product is now called HostExplorer (HostEx for short). HostEx, like McGill is used for '3270 emulation.' As '3270 emulators,' they allow the PC to talk to the mainframe and handle the conversion of the mainframes language (EBCDIC) to the PC's language (ASCII).

Everything you could do in McGill can still be done in HostEx. The two products are very much the same. Like most software upgrades, however, HostEx is a more powerful product and includes more features than it's aged sister, McGill. In Technical Services, McGill will only be used as a companion ORBSRCH session to the online shelflist. Logon to this shelflist McGill session using SHELF/SHELF.

This document does not attempt to demonstate the many new features of HostEx. Instead, it illustrates some of the features of HostEx that you need in order to use it effectively  for ORBIS and with CLARR.

• HostEx must be started before CLARR.
• With McGill, you start ORBSRCH from an icon on the Desktop.
• With HostEx, start ORBSRCH from within ORBEDIT in order to ensure a proper connection to CLARR. Note, on some workstations, ORBEDIT is called ORBYUL or ORBCAT.
  • Start ORBEDIT from an icon on the Desktop.
  • Once ORBEDIT is running, select OPEN SESSION from the HostEx toolbar.

    

  • From the OPEN SESSION options, select ORBSRCH.

    

What are those delimiters in HostEx?

• One of the most striking differences between McGill and HostEx is the display of the subfield delimiter. McGill uses a dagger. HostEx uses an enlarged left bracket.

  McGill display:

  

  HostEx Display:

  

Macros=Quick-Keys

• McGill Macros are called Quick-Keys in HostEx, but you still create and upate them by clicking the Happy Face on the toolbar. Ignore the menu option 'Macro.'

Cutting and Pasting creates extra spaces:

• When you cut-and-paste long tags from one ORBIS HostEx session to another ORBIS HostEx session, spaces between words may be eliminated, or extra spaces may be added within tags and at the end of tags.

  Although the record my look okay in ltyl, in the OPAC, the space problems cause indexing and display problems.

  Note that this problem only occurs when editing records by cutting-and-pasting from one ORBIS session to another. The problem occurs more frequently in cataloging processing and less so during acquisition processing.

  This space problem is inherent in HostEx and is independent of CLARR. Be aware of and correct for the problem whether you are using CLARR or not.

  Incorrect:

  524/1:  : |a Idek R. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3130).  Fortunoff Video Archive[sp][sp]
  forHolocaust Testimonies, YaleUniversityLibrary.[sp][sp][sp][sp][sp][sp][sp][sp][sp][sp]
  
  
  Correct:
  524/1:  : |a Idek R. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3130).  Fortunoff Video Archive
  for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
  

• To eliminate spaces, use the end-of-field character (CNTL F4). Close or open spaces mid-tag manually.
  • To check for spaces, display nulls. To computers, spaces are characters just like the letter 'A' is a character. Spaces are not 'nothing.' Nulls, on the other hand, are nothing. You can tell the difference between extra spaces and nulls by turning on the display of nulls. Nulls display as periods. To turn on the display of nulls:
  • Select OPTIONS,
  • Select EDIT SESSION PROFILE.

  

• Expand DISPLAY by double-clicking and select GENERAL,
• Click SHOW NULLS.

  

• Click OK.

  A screen with nulls displayed looks like this. Note the extra spaces at the end of tag100.

  

• If you want to always display nulls, you need to save your profile changes.
  • Under File select Save Session Profile.

  

  • Make sure you check Save Layout.

  

• Click SAVE.
• Don't forget to turn on Display Nulls in all of your ORBIS profiles: ORBSRCH, ORBEDIT, ORBYUL and ORBCAT.

CLARR +  Cataloging at Yale

CLARR basics | CLARR tutorial | Using CLARR |  HostEx | R4W tutorial  | RLIN pass | OCLC xpo | configuring CLARR