Differences between z/OSMF ISPF and 3270 z/OS ISPF

The setting of session attributes

The z/OSMF ISPF Settings window shows logon settings and display settings like color mappings. The logon settings are similar to the settings displayed on a TSO logon screen, for when you use 3270 z/OS ISPF. The color mappings are an extra feature that map 3270 colors to the Web browser. For more information see z/OSMF ISPF User Settings window.

Standard ISPF settings are available through the Settings option (option 0) of ISPF. Several of these settings are not valid for a GUI environment, and are thus displayed as disabled.

Enhanced splitting of panes and switching between tabs

With z/OSMF ISPF, you can split the pane to create up to four panes, and you can create tabs within panes, with up to eight tabs across all panes.

With 3270 z/OS ISPF, you split a screen by pressing F2. Then a split, a dotted line, appears horizontally across the screen. Switch panes by pressing Swap (F9).

With the z/OSMF ISPF browser interface, you can create many tabbed panes.

Creating tabs in z/OSMF ISPF

When you first enter z/OSMF ISPF, there is a single tabbed pane. The title of the tab indicates the current ISPF function:

When the SPLIT command and the START command without parameters are issued the first dialog used to start ISPF is also invoked to initiate the new logical screen. In most cases this dialog causes the display of the Primary Options Menu.

It is possible to start ISPF with a dialog that displays a different initial panel or runs a command or program. For example, when the z/OSMF Application Linking Manager is used to invoke an ISPF application, z/OSMF checks if ISPF is started by the TSO/E logon procedure. If ISPF is not started, the Application Linking Manager starts ISPF with an initial dialog that displays the requested content. In this situation, if you use the Split button or the START command without parameters, the new logical screen created is also invoked with a display of the requested content.

If ISPF is started by the logon procedure, the Application Linking Manager uses the ISPF START command to create a new logical screen and run the dialog to display the requested content. In this situation, if you use the Split command or the START command without parameters, the new logical screen is created using the first dialog used to start ISPF (this usually results in the display of the Primary Options Menu).

You can keep creating tabs by issuing the START command, up to the installation limit.

You can also create the second tab by pressing Split. Pressing Split produces a second tab when one tab is open. If more than one tab is open, on a single pane, or on split panes, then pressing Split does nothing.

Create a new pane by clicking the Horizontal Split button () or the Vertical Split button (), if they are active. You can have four panes open at once. Resize a pane by clicking and dragging the divider between panes.

If fewer than eight tabs are open when you create a new pane, a new tab is also created. Otherwise, a message is displayed and an empty pane is created. You can then drag an existing tab into this pane. (Eight tabs or logical screens is the default limit supplied by IBM®. A site can increase this limit up to a value of 32 by changing the ISPF configuration table.)

Moving tabs in z/OSMF ISPF

If you have two or more panes open, you can move a tab from one pane to another. Click the tab you want to move, and drag it to a different pane. When the tab you are moving is in a legal position, a green arrow is displayed:

You can now drop the tab in this position.

By following this procedure you can get many tabs in one pane:

Scrolling and paging

As well as standard browser scrolling, which is available when a scroll bar is displayed in the browser, z/OSMF ISPF offers another form of scrolling. This scrolling happens when information is already loaded and formatted in the browser display. This information is available when the scroll buttons are displayed and active:

These buttons are a one mouse-button click interface to the ISPF LEFT, RIGHT, UP, and DOWN scroll commands. So these buttons are used for paging (as defined in this document).

The buttons are only displayed on those panels where application changes have been made to enable the buttons. This is true for most ISPF-supplied panels that support paging such as DSLIST, member list display, edit, browse, and table displays such as the z/OS UNIX Directory List. A paging button is disabled and not selectable if the application cannot be paged in the associated direction. For example, when at the beginning of a member list, the Up button is disabled and is not selectable.

This type of scrolling is not supported in z/OS ISPF.

Paging means to display information that is not yet available in the browser. To see this information a new page must be loaded. Paging is supported in z/OS ISPF. It is typically done by using the Forward (F8) and Back (F7) keys.

Scrolling

When the scroll icons are displayed for a z/OSMF ISPF pane, you can scroll the information in the list pane in the appropriate direction by clicking a scroll button.

Paging

In 3270 z/OS ISPF, if there is more information available for a panel than can fit on the screen, a More scroll indicator appears. The More scroll indicator is used for panels defined with a scrollable area. This indicator is not used for other types of panels that can be scrolled, such as table displays, member lists, edit, browse, and so on.

The More scroll indicator is followed by a plus sign (+), a minus sign (-), or both characters. The plus sign indicates that more information follows the information currently displayed, and the minus sign indicates the more information precedes the information currently displayed. To view the information that follows or precedes the information currently displayed, press Forward (F8) or Back (F7), respectively.

In z/OSMF ISPF, the number of rows (as specified by the Screensize rows parameter in the Settings window) are made available. You can scroll the pane to see all of these rows. If there are more rows available, then press F8 to see them.

Point and click for menu options, action bar entries, and function keys

In z/OSMF ISPF, the menu options (that is, the selectable entries on an ISPF menu panel) and function keys are links. Click the relevant link to invoke the menu option or function key. This functionality is in addition to the standard method of entering the menu option or pressing the function key.

If your site has customized a menu panel provided by ISPF, the menu options might not be defined as point-and-shoot fields. In this case, the options are not displayed as links in z/OSMF ISPF.

In 3270 z/OS ISPF, one character in each action bar item is underlined. If you move the cursor to this underlined character and press Ctrl, then the relevant pull-down menu is displayed. You can also often select an action bar item by entering its number.

In z/OSMF ISPF, there is no underlining or numbering of action bar items. However, if you point at or tab to an action bar item, it is highlighted, and if you click the item, then the pull-down menu is displayed. Select from the action bar by pointing and clicking.

Function key differences

The table shows default function key differences:

These defaults are determined by the particular emulator you are using to access 3270 applications. So be careful of the key assignments for both ISPF (KEYS) and your PC keyboard keys.

You can adjust this default behavior, so that pressing Ctrl acts like pressing Enter (in other words, standard 3270 behavior). To do so, select the Enable Ctrl key as Enter key. option in the z/OSMF ISPF User Settings panel. When you do so, both the Enter key and the Ctrl key act as Enter. When you enable this setting, there is no difference between the left Ctrl key and the right Ctrl key. They both act as Enter. You must press Ctrl by itself. If you press Ctrl plus another key, nothing happens. The behavior you have selected is retained over logoffs. It remains the same until you select or deselect the Enable Ctrl key as Enter key. option.

In some cases, the Attention key might appear to be unresponsive. If so, try pressing the Attention key again. If the request times out, click Cancel to interrupt the process. Doing so should have the same effect as pressing the Attention key.

Message and message help display

When messages are displayed in 3270 z/OS ISPF, the messages block part of the screen, and if you request message help, the help is displayed in a separate window that also blocks the screen. When messages or message help are displayed in z/OSMF ISPF, they are displayed in a separate container that does not block any of the information displayed on the panel.

Changing Yes/No options

In 3270 z/OS ISPF, there are many options that you select by entering a / into the one-character field (if you do not put a / into the field, you are not selecting it).

In z/OSMF ISPF, these options are replaced by check boxes. Change an option by moving the cursor to the box and pressing Spacebar, A check (tick) in the box indicates that the option is selected (Yes). A faster way to change the status of the option is to point and click the associated check box.

Make sure that you press Enter after you have changed the option, so that the change is transmitted.

Changing the font size

In 3270 z/OS ISPF, if you are running under PCOMM, or some other screen emulator, you change the font size by changing the size of the window. As the window grows, the font size increases. But the amount of information displayed on the window remains the same, since the window size and font size change at the same rate.

In z/OSMF ISPF, when you change the font size, you do not change the size of the browser window. As a result, the amount of information that can be displayed changes, with less information displayed as the font size increases. You can access the missing information by using the scroll bars, or by enlarging the browser window. You can adjust the font size (and thus the quantity of information displayed) to suit your particular requirements.

Progress indicators

In z/OSMF ISPF, under certain circumstances (for example, you are executing a long-running REXX program), a progress indicator is displayed. This informs you that z/OSMF is processing a timeout request and might take several minutes to complete. For more details about the indicator, see About progress indicators.

In 3270 z/OS ISPF, progress indicators are also displayed, for example, when building a large data set list and space calculations are required. These progress indicators are displayed in z/OSMF ISPF when you select the appropriate options.

Copying and pasting in a text area

In 3270 z/OS ISPF, you are able to copy and paste a rectangular block of text. In z/OSMF ISPF, you can copy multiple text fields, but only one input field at a time. This restriction can especially limit the productivity if using the ISPF editor. The restriction applies to the editor data display area, and is a limitation of web browsers.

Response times

TSO and ISPF access from a Web browser does not have the same performance characteristics as native TSO access. z/OSMF must do additional processing to gather and send information from the browser, and receive and format information to the browser. These operations are in addition to the ISPF and TSO processing, which is still required.

TSO and ISPF response time and resource requirements with z/OSMF vary greatly depending upon the scenario being invoked. Generally, commands that require minimum input data and minimum output data perform the best.

z/OSMF ISPF editor

Experienced users of the ISPF editor are used to toggling between overtype and insert mode. This capability is also supported in z/OSMF ISPF. To switch to overtype mode, click the Insert key until Insert Off is displayed in the z/OSMF ISPF task tab. To switch to insert mode, click the Insert key until Insert On is displayed.

Experienced users of the ISPF editor are also accustom to copying and pasting marked areas that span many lines into the editor area. This capability is not supported in z/OSMF ISPF. This difference is one of the key differences for users of z/OS ISPF in everyday work when working with z/OSMF ISPF.

The z/OSMF ISPF editor functions are available as a series of input fields. with a line command and content field on each row. This approach, which is necessary for a browser, causes these restrictions:

• You cannot copy and paste over multiple lines.
• There is no wrapping of a line when a line is full and you want to add more content to the line.
• The HILITE function for syntax highlighting is only available in VIEW mode.

Resize

Because z/OSMF ISPF is still a text-based application it might not match expectations of graphical web applications in resize behavior. Select a web browser size that permits the display of the whole ISPF panel.

View (Option 1) and Edit (Option 2) file selection

After you have provided the DSN for the View and Edit options, the list of files is displayed and an underline precedes each file name.

In z/OS ISPF, you select a file by typing / on the underline, and then pressing Enter. However, in z/OSMF ISPF, you select a file by clicking the underline. The cursor changes to the pointing finger to show that the underline is a hot link.