Overview of File Manager® editor actions

In addition to the basic edit functionality, the File Manager® editor provides a set of actions to improve productivity. These actions are available in the File Manager® menu toolbar, as toolbar items, or directly from the editor's pop-up menu.

The toolbar menu and toolbar items
The File Manager® plug-in editor pop-up menu

Follow the links for more detailed explanations of the actions.

Select All
Copy Records
Copy to clipboard
Cut Records
Delete icon Delete Records
Exclude Records
Find/Replace
Insert Records
Locate a column
Hex on/off
Scroll Cache Down
Scroll Cache Up
Scroll Cache Left
Scroll Cache Right
Paste Records
Refresh editor contents
Reset Excludes
Save Records
SaveAs Records
Sort Records
Show Options
Switch Mode
Validate Records
Toggle Record Length
Toggle Ruler

Copy Records

This action copies the currently selected records in the editor. The copied records are available for Paste Action. Note that grouped records, such as excluded records, grouped unselected records and grouped suppressed records, are not available for this action. See Show Options and Exclude Records for more information.

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Copy to clipboard

This action copies the currently selected records in the editor to a clipboard. The copied records are available for pasting into a desired application like a spreadsheet or a notepad. Note excluded and shadow lines, are not copied by this action.

This action is equivalent to CTRL + C key combination.

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Select All

This action selects all the rows in a table and is equivalent to doing CTRL + A key combination.

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Cut Records

This action cuts the currently selected records in the editor. This action is the equivalent of performing the Copy Records action followed by a Delete Records action against the currently selected records. Note that grouped records, such as excluded records, grouped not selected records and grouped suppressed records, are not available for this action. See Show Options and Exclude Records for more information.

Once records are cut, they are removed from the editor for display. However, the records are not removed from the original source unless a Save is performed explicitly.

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Delete icon Delete Records

This action deletes the currently selected records in the editor. A Delete all records checkbox provides the option of deleting the entire contents of the resource. Note that grouped records, such as excluded records, grouped unselected records and grouped suppressed records, are not available for this action. See Show Options and Exclude Records for more information.

Once records are deleted, they are removed from the editor for display. However, the records are not deleted from the original source unless a Save is performed explicitly.

The delete confirmation dialog allows you to specify an option to delete all records (see below). If you try to execute delete action without a valid selection in the editor, then this option is selected by default.

Delete records options dialog

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Exclude Records from display

This action temporarily excludes some records from the display for the current edit session. The criteria for excluding records are specified using Exclude Options dialog shown below.

Exclude Options dialog
Refer to IBM® File Manager® for z/OS®, User's Guide and Reference for a full description of these options.

This action is useful when you are looking for a subset of records currently being displayed in the editor. For example, you can specify Exclude all record options which excludes all records from the display (You should get a shadow line which indicates how many records are excluded from the display. See Show Options for more information.). Subsequently, you can look for records which contains a specific pattern using the Find/Replace action. The Find/Replace action will then cause only the records containing the specific pattern to be displayed, while other records remain hidden.

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Find/Replace

This action enables you to search for a string literal or hex value within the currently edited resource. Furthermore, you can issue a replace command which replaces the occurrences of searched patterns with the specified replacement pattern. Find/Replace options are specified using the Find/Replace dialog which is shown in the picture below.

Find/Replace dialog

Refer to IBM File Manager® for z/OS, User's Guide and Reference for the full description of these options.

After a Find/Replace command is issued, the result is reflected in the editor contents. The picture below is a screenshot of the File Manager® editor after successfully issuing a Find command to the current edit session (note that fields containing the search pattern are highlighted). The Find/Replace dialog remains active as long as the current edit session is open, so you can interactively specify search commands.

After successful execution of a Replace command, the records are modified in the editor for display. However, the changes to records are not committed to the edited resource until a Save is executed explicitly.

Example of a search result

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Insert Records

This action inserts the specified number of new records into the current edit session. This action is only available in edit sessions and data set types that allow new records to be inserted. The number of new records to insert is specified in the Insert Records dialog.

If you select Insert Records at the top option in the dialog, the specified number of new records will be inserted at the top of the editor. Otherwise, the new records are inserted after the selected record or after the first record from a group of selected records. If no valid selection exists in the editor, then you will be given an option to insert new records at the top.

The records are inserted in the editor for display. However, the records are not saved to the edited resource until a Save is executed explicitly.

Insert dialog

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Locate column

This action allows you to locate a column in the current edit session. This action is only available when a template is used to format the data and the records are displayed in formatted mode.

When the user invokes the Locate Column action, the Locate Column dialog (shown below) is displayed. The user is able to see a list of fields that are available in the currently selected layout of the template in use for the current edit session. Once a field name is selected from the list, the editor tries to adjust the position of the table so that the selected field/column is visible in the editor.

Locate Column dialog

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Hex on/off

This action toggles hex lines on or off.

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Scroll Cache Down

The File Manager® editor only caches a subset of records locally for display. The number of cached records are controlled in the File Manager® preference page. This allows efficient transfer of data from mainframe to your desktop machine, particularly when you are working with a resource containing a large number of records.

This action moves the cached records forward. That is, it retrieves records which follow the last record cached in the current cache window. This action is equivalent of issuing DOWN nn command, in that it positions the editor's cursor forward by the specified number of records (nn).

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Scroll Cache Up

The File Manager® editor only caches a subset of records locally for display. The number of cached records are controlled in the File Manager® preference page. This allows efficient transfer of data from mainframe to your desktop machine, particularly when you are working with a resource containing a large number of records.

This action moves the cached records backward. That is, it retrieves records that precede the first record cached in the current cache window. This action is equivalent of issuing UP nn command, in that it positions the editor's cursor backward by the specified number of records (nn).

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Scroll Cache Left

The File Manager® editor only caches a subset of records locally for display. The number of cached records are controlled in the File Manager® preference page. This allows efficient transfer of data from mainframe to your desktop machine, particularly when you are working with a resource containing a large number of records.

This action moves the cached records to the left. That is, it retrieves records from columns to the left of the current cache window. This action is equivalent to issuing the LEFT nn command, in that it positions the editor's cursor to the left by the specified number of records (nn).

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Scroll Cache Right

The File Manager® editor only caches a subset of records locally for display. The number of cached records are controlled in the File Manager® preference page. This allows efficient transfer of data from mainframe to your desktop machine, particularly when you are working with a resource containing a large number of records.

This action moves the cached records to the right. That is, it retrieves data to the right of the current cache window. This action is equivalent to issuing the RIGHT nn command, in that it positions the editor's cursor to the right by the specified number of records (nn).

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Paste Records

This action pastes the copied/cut records into the currently edited resource. This action is only available in an edit session when the resource being edited allows insertion of new records.

If you specify Paste records at the top option in the Paste Records dialog, then the records are inserted at the beginning of the currently edited resource. Otherwise, the records are inserted after the currently selected records in the editor. If no valid selection is available in the editor, then the user is presented with an option to insert records at the beginning of the currently edited resource.

The records are inserted in the editor for display. However, the records are not saved to the edited resource until a Save is explicitly executed.

In the Paste Records dialog, you can specify the number of times the selected records should be pasted into the current edit session (i.e. repeat). The maximum number of repeats is 1000.

Paste records dialog

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Refresh editor contents

This action refreshes the contents of an editor by retrieving all data from the host. This command is particularly useful when you are editing a WebSphere MQ® queue using the editor.

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Reset Excludes

This action resets the current Exclude options. That is, all previously excluded records will be displayed again. See Exclude for more information.

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Save Records

This action saves the modified records, that is, the changes are made to the resource on a permanent basis. This action is only applicable in an edit session and only becomes available when the editor contents are modified.

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SaveAs Records

This action allows a user to save the contents of a currently selected resource to a different resource on the host. When this action is executed, the user is presented with a dialog that allows them to specify the target resource.

Note that the current editor's Show Options determines which records to be saved/copied to the target resource. That is, only records that are considered visible to the user in the editor are copied. See Show Options for further information.

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Sort Records

This action sorts records based on the specified criteria. The sorting criteria is specified using the Sort Options dialog (shown below). For Sort by column number and Sort by field reference, up to five criteria can be specified.

Sort Options dialog

Depending on the edit session, there are three sorting methods:

  1. Sort by column number: Sort by column number in ascending or descending order. This sort option is specified using Sort by column dialog which is shown below.
  2. Sort by field reference: Sort by values in a selected field in ascending/descending order. This sort option is specified using the Sort by field dialog which is shown below. This option is only available when a template or copybook is specified for the current edit session.
  3. Sort by KSDS key: Sort by value of the KSDS key in ascending or descending order. This option is only available when editing a KSDS file.
Sort by column dialog
Sort by field dialog

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Show Options

This action controls how records are grouped (grouping options) and which should be displayed to the user (shadow line options). These options are specified using the Show and Shadow Lines Options dialog (shown below).

Grouping options

These options control whether similar types of records should be grouped together or not.

Shadow line options

These options control whether a shadow line should be displayed to represent a specific type of grouped record.

Show Options dialog

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Switch editor mode

This action switches between Formatted (table) mode (if a template/copybook is applied) and Character mode.

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Validate editor contents

This action validates any changes to the currently edited records. If any errors exist, then they are reported to the user. If validation is successful, or if the user chooses to ignore the errors, then the changes are reflected in the edit session. However, changes are not saved to the currently edited resource until a Save is explicitly executed.

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Toggle Record Length

This action shows the record length. It is a toggle action which when toggled on, displays the record length column and when toggled off, hides the same column.

Toggle Actions for Show Record Length
Record Length Column Displayed

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Toggle Ruler

This action toggles the character count ruler on or off. The ruler is always fixed and located at the top of the displayed records

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