Legacy Integration Supplement: High-Impact ISPF Settings

by Jim Moore
August 1, 2004

This article explains several high-impact z/OS ISPF settings that you can change at the individual user level. We’ll focus on settings that apply globally (sessionwide) at the individual user level. Every ISPF user on a z/OS machine can have different values for the settings we’ll cover. Once these settings are established, they apply to many aspects of an individual ISPF session on all screens.

These ISPF settings closely resemble the preferences menu choice commonly found in many Graphical User Interface (GUI) environments. The settings will remain persistent across logons to TSO as long as ISPF is cleanly exited.

For most single-value (on/off) type settings, the settings menu choice is where the values are established (see Figure 1).

The display shown on the settings screen has an action bar across the top and multiple fields in the body.

The option fields that appear down the left-hand side of the settings screen are all in the Common User Access (CUA) slash-select format that’s consistent throughout all of ISPF. To activate a setting, a slash (/) is placed in the input field just in front of the text that describes the option.

The other selections, print graphics and general, toward the right-hand side and terminal characteristics, across the bottom of the screen, are fields where a value must be provided either off a list of choices (terminal characteristics) or a discrete value. To learn more about which values can appear in a certain field, see the accompanying sidebar, which explains how to use ISPF fieldlevel help.

The balance of this article will list the more important option fields (those with high or medium impact on daily ISPF usage) at the settings screen.

 

Option Fields (Slash-Select) at the Settings Screen

Command line at bottom: The IBM default for this setting is bottom (place the command line at the bottom of the screen). A slash in the selection field changes the setting to ASIS (place the command line near the top of the screen).

Having the command line at the bottom of the screen throughout ISPF conforms to the CUA standard. However, for many years, the command line of ISPF appeared near the top of the screen. This setting is an acknowledgment by IBM that many long-time users of ISPF prefer the command line at the top. This setting can be categorized as one that allows backward compatibility with prior ISPF releases.

Recommended setting: off (places command line near top of screen)

Usability impact: high

There are valid reasons for having the command line near the top of the screen in ISPF. Most of these reasons stem from the fact that, often, ISPF still relies on typed commands.

Of the numerous ways to position the cursor into the command line so a command can be typed, the most common way is to use the home key. Other keyboard-oriented methods include the use of the PF key-equated ISPF commands CURSOR, RETRIEVE and CRETRIEV as well as multiple presses of the tab or new line key. With 3270 emulation software, there’s also the mouse-in option. Position the mouse cursor in the command line and left-click the mouse.