Changing CICS resources and definitions

You can change CICS® resources and definitions in the CICS Explorer® resource editor, which opens in a separate tab group called the editor area.

You can open the editor for a resource in the following ways:
  • When you create a new resource definition, select the Open editor check box in the wizard to open the corresponding resource editor after the wizard completes.
  • For resources that already exists, open from a resource or a project view, by either double-clicking the resource name, or selecting Open from the right-click menu.

You can minimize, maximize, resize, or move the editor area in the same way as other tab groups.

If you open a resource in a running CICS region, the changes you can make are limited. However, if you open a resource definition, you can change all editable attributes, just as you can with CEDA.

What's in a resource editor

A resource editor has one or more tabs, depending on the resource being viewed or edited, and how many fields can be updated for that resource. The following screen capture shows an example of the Pipeline Definition editor, which has an Overview and an Attributes tab.
Workbench showing the Pipeline editor.
Some editors have hyperlinked file paths as attribute values; for example, this STDERR File attribute points to a JES data definition as the output destination:
Hyper linked STDERR file path

You can click it to navigate to that JES log, provided that you set up the required connection to the z/OS® UNIX file system.

Editing resource attributes

The attributes tab shows the attributes of a resource. The attributes are grouped in a similar way as they appear in CEDA or the CICSPlex® SM WUI.

For a resource that is defined in a CICS bundle project, only the attributes that you can edit are displayed.

For other resources, editable attribute values are shown in normal text and values that you cannot edit are disabled. You can hide or show the non-editable attributes by clicking the Show/hide non-editable attributes icon The Show/hide non-editable attributes icon.

To edit an attribute, double-click the field to select a value from a pre-defined list or enter a new value. For resources in a CICS bundle project, you can use variables when editing the resource definition.

You can select or specify an empty string for the value of an attribute. The results depend on whether the resource is defined in a CICSplex or a bundle project:
  • For a resource that is defined in a CICSplex, the default value is applied for the attribute when you save your changes, if the value is a valid choice.
  • For a resource that is defined in a bundle project, the attribute is removed from the definition in the bundle project when you save your changes.

To apply the changes to the definition, you must save them by clicking File > Save or pressing Ctrl+S (cmd+S for macOS). If you have unsaved changes in an editor, an asterisk (*) is displayed in front of the resource name in the editor name tab.

Changes to a resource defined in a CICSplex are applied in the CICSplex, and changes to a resource defined in a bundle project are saved in the bundle project.

Acting against a resource with the breadcrumb trail

For resources that you can perform actions against directly, the resource editor displays a breadcrumb trail that shows the CICSplex and the resource name in the top of the editor. You can click the arrow to the right of the resource name to display a list of actions you can act against the resource.
Breadcrumb trail for a pipeline resource named PIPELIN1

For resources that are defined in bundle projects, such as the program definition resource, their editors do not show a breadcrumb trail because you do not perform actions against these resources directly. The resources are dynamically generated and modified in CICS regions when you perform actions against the bundles where the resources are defined.