Created by N Padmavathi on Jan 22, 2024

Available in ≥ 2.12

Introduction

The Welcome page provides a quick guide for self-discovering and analyzing the impact of changes, or identifying a path for modernization. When you first login to CAST Imaging and select an application, by default, you will be directed to the Welcome page, which displays the details of the current application. 

The tabs/links displayed in the Welcome page depend on the content of the selected application. For example: the Data Objects tab/link appears only when the selected application contains database objects, such as procedures, functions, and so on.

Click to enlarge


  • If/when there is a delay in loading the Welcome page, loader screen is displayed to let the user know that the Welcome page is in the process of loading.
  • Out of the box, CAST Imaging will display the Welcome page by default, however, it can be disabled using the Landing Page option in Preferences (set it to Imaging Menu):

  • Use the "Home" button in the left hand panel:
    • To re-display the Welcome page, if you have navigated away from it
    • To display the Welcome page, if you have selected "Imaging Menu" as the landing page in Preference

  OR 

Options in the Welcome page

When you login to Imaging, the Welcome page is displayed with two tabs - Guided Search and Pre-defined. By default, Pre-defined tab is selected and the tiled view is displayed (as in previous releases). See User Guide - GUI - Welcome Page - Guided Search.

The tiles displayed in each section depend on the characteristic of your application (i.e. All the tiles shown below are not always visible).

Do you want to learn about your application? /Are you new to the application?

Provides information and dedicated views to help you understand and discover the application. 

Learn about application architecture

Learn about application database

Learn about application modularity

Learn about application dependencies with other application

Do you want to implement changes in code?

Provides information and dedicated views to help you view the impact of a code change to an object, transaction, data call graph. The following tiles can be displayed:

  • Investigate Objects
  • Investigate Transaction
  • Investigate Data Call Graphs

Do you want to know the cloud maturity of your application?

Are you looking for guidance on upgrading/modernizing your application?

This option, in its BETA version, provides access to the "Imaging Advisor" giving information about the status of your application with regard to a migration to a cloud provider such as AWS(Amazon Web Services), Oracle Cloud or Database Migration. See User Guide - GUI - Welcome Page - Imaging Advisor.


Prerequisites

Imaging Advisor will be made available for an application at the current time, as follows:

Do you want to modernize your application?

Available in ≥ 2.14

Provides information and dedicated views to help you view how items in your application's source code are linked and the potential impacts of modernizing these items. The following tiles can be displayed:

Prerequisites for display of "Third Party Components Upgrade" / "Third Party Components" (≥ 2.17) tile

Do you want to accelerate cloud migration?

Available in ≥ 2.14

These tiles provide information about how well prepared your application is for cloud migration, i.e. moving from an on premises deployment to a cloud scenario. The following tiles are displayed:

  • Cloud Readiness
  • Containerization Insights

When a tile is clicked, an interface is loaded where a list of "blockers" (i.e. a list of "issues" found in the application that could hinder a move to the cloud) and "boosters" (behaviour found in the application that already conforms to cloud best-practices, and therefore would not negatively impact the process of moving the application to the cloud) - see User Guide - GUI - Welcome Page - Cloud Migration information for more information.

Prerequisites

This information is generated using CAST Highlight, therefore these tiles are only displayed if the application meets the following requirements:

Do you want to optimize and secure your application?

This option helps you to highlight the object types that have been identified to have Security Flaws, Performance Flaws, and Error Handling Flaws. 

The following tiles are displayed:

  • Security Flaws
  • Performance Flaws
  • Error Handling Flaws

When you click on any of the above tiles, respective flaws are highlighted as shown below.

Application properties

EntryDescription


  • App size:  shows the size (S, M, L, XL, XXL) of the selected application based on the number Lines of Code.

Other information displays the selected application's total number of:

  • Objects
  • Relationships
  • Transactions
  • Data Call Graph
  • Lines of Code > see information box below about how this value is calculated. 
  • Version (for applications without a version number ‘-’ is displayed).
  • Version Date

Technologies and Lines of Code values

Lists the "Technologies" associated with the selected application and the "Lines of Code" per technology. By default, a maximum of 5 technologies associated with the selected applications are displayed.

A SHOW MORE button (available in ≥ 2.16.0) helps you to view all the technologies associated with the selected application. SHOW MORE button is not displayed if the number of technologies associated with the selected application is less than 5.

Pre-requisites

The Core Metrics extension is used to generate the Lines of Code (LOC) value and obtain the list of technologies. Therefore these values may be empty if you have upgraded to CAST Imaging ≥ 2.12.0 and your applications were not analyzed with the inclusion of the Core Metrics extension.

If you need to see these values, you should therefore run an analysis (ensuring that the Core Metrics extension is installed) and re-import your applications into CAST Imaging.

Note:

  • The Core Metrics extension is force installed and automatically included in every analysis in Console ≥ 2.4.
  • If you are using Console < 2.4, you will need to manually download and include the Core Metrics extension.


  • Available in ≥ 2.16
  • Lines of code for the Language/s is displayed only if the pre-requisites listed below are met, else LOC (lines of code) for the associated Technologies is displayed instead.

Languages and Lines of Code values

Lists the "Languages" associated with the selected application and the "Lines of Code" per language. This provides more information than is provided by the LOC values for Technologies (Technologies are custom "groupings" which do not show all constituent languages). This information matches the information provided in the Overview panel in CAST Console.

Pre-requisites

  • Analyzed with CAST Console ≥ 2.7
  • Fast Scan onboarding workflow must be used to onboard the application in CAST Console
  • Analyzed with the Console Information for Imaging extension (this extension is force installed and automatically included in every analysis in Console ≥ 2.8).
  • Imported into CAST Imaging ≥ 2.16.

Action when clicking a tile

Clicking on any of the above mentioned tile takes you direct to a custom layout that is specific to the tab you have clicked. For example, clicking the Data Storage Objects option opens a view displaying all the SQL tables in your application:

Some tiles take you to a dedicated interface providing detailed information:

Welcome Guide pop-up

When clicking a tab/link in the Welcome page and navigating through to the custom layout, a pop-up message is also displayed by default which explains what the custom view contains. For example, clicking the Database Tables option opens a view displaying all the SQL tables in your application and the pop-up message explains this:

Click Do not show again if you do not want a specific pop-up to be displayed every time you click a specific tab/link in the Welcome page.

Redisplaying the pop-up

Use the View Information option in the left hand panel:

  • To re-display the pop-up when it is closed 
  • To display the pop-up whenever the "Do not show again" option is selected. 

In Imaging versions ≥ 2.20.0, the graph info section opens automatically on navigating from homepage tiles.

Disabling the pop-up

If you want to disable the pop-up message for all the tabs/links of the Welcome Page, use (disable) the Welcome Guide option under Preferences: