Quark Engine

Green Screens Quark Engine is a small, lite and fast elementary building block between web and Java server side. Now open-sourced and freely available for public use under MIT License.

We name it Quark as it is an elementary particle that is a bridge between the web browser and our Green Screens Terminal Service for IBM i. It is part of our integration modules we are working on for future Green Screens Server v5.

The main power of this small library is ease of use, out of the box data transfer encryption and increased development speed.

Even Green Screens Quark Engine is generic and can be used in any Java/JavaScript project, it is made in Java for a reason. If you, dear reader, are a developer which works with IBM i platform, then it is a great chance you are aware about JT400. Powerful library initially made by IBM and later open-sourced which allows programmatic access to absolutely any resource on IBM i server.  

Today IBM i supports many programming languages such as Python, JavaScript for NodeJS, PHP, etc. However, using some powerful features that exist in JT400 might not be available in other languages available on IBM i.

One very important benefit of JT400 is: Java Server application does not have to be run on IBM i system, but somewhere in the cloud while JT400 lib can connect to the IBM i as a backend service which makes one more important case - IBM i isolation from direct access.  

Green Screens Server for IBM i is one of the products enabling IBM i isolation. As it is written in Java and uses JT400, it can be run from anywhere where IBM i is reachable. With custom web modules as services, advanced integrations are possible but that's only part of the story.  

Creating REST services, maintaining documentation, tracking changes, and implementing it into web apps might be daunting task which, of course, depend on implementation requirements. To make this process as transparent as possible, we created our own Quark Engine which hides the complexity and brings one-to-one Java Script to Java class system mapping.

Calling Java Classes from the browser  are completely transparent, as calls look exactly the same as static methods would be called from Java without need to worry about REST format, services, parameters, etc.

Writing standard Java Comments inside code and using javadoc tool to generate web manual also makes manuals for Quark Engine out of the box due to the nature of how Quark Engine is made.

To find how this engine works, check out the Quick Start product page.

In this blog series we will publish examples and tutorials from time to time about how to use Quark Engine with JT400 library to create advanced integrations between Green Screens Terminal and custom developed services for IBM i. So, make sure to bookmark tag on the bottom of this page and check it occasionally for new posts.