Usability Features

This section contains the following topics:

How to Make Tasks Easier

Display Online Help

Display Expanded Message Text

Name Mask Search Strings

Set Dialog Defaults

Panel Field Values

View the Foreground Execution Report

ISPF Interface

How to Make Tasks Easier

To help you work more efficiently, you should become familiar with usability features that make working in the ISPF panels easier. These features are the same for all users, except for the user dialog defaults, which you can change according to your preferences. Similar features are available in standard CA Endevor SCM and CA Endevor Quick Edit. Any differences are noted in the appropriate topics.The usability features follow:

In addition, you should be familiar with the commands and functions of the ISPF panels and the ISPF Edit panel. For more information, see ISPF Interface.

Display Online Help

You can display online help for panel options and fields or ISPF fields, to help you understand the options or fields. To display online help, press PF1 from any panel. The help text for that panel opens, if it exists. The help page displays information about the options or fields on that panel.

Display Expanded Message Text

Abbreviated message text is automatically displayed on a panel, but you can display expanded message text to read more detailed information. To display expanded message text, press PF1 when abbreviated message text is displayed on a panel. The expanded message text for that message is displayed.

Note: If you press PF1 again, the online help text for the current panel opens.

Name Mask Search Strings

To help you more easily find information and process requests, you can use name masking. Name masking lets you substitute a wildcard asterisk (*) character or a placeholder percent sign (%) character for one or more characters in a search string. Name masking is valid on many, but not all, search requests.

To name mask a search string, substitute characters in your search string with a wildcard (*), a placeholder (%), or both. Valid uses for wildcards and placeholders follow.

Wildcard

* – A wildcard asterisk (*) character substitutes for either the entire search string or for one or more characters at the end of a search string. You cannot have more than one wildcard in a string. A wildcard can be used as follows:

As the only character in the search string. This use of the wildcard returns all members of the search field. For example, entering the following in a CCID field on the CA Endevor Quick-Edit panel returns a selection list of all elements that match the other selection criteria, regardless of the CCID associated with the elements: *
At the end of the search string. This use of the wildcard returns only the members of the search field that begin with the characters in the search string preceding the wildcard. For example, entering the following in the Element name field on the CA Endevor Quick-Edit panel, returns a selection list of all elements that begin with abcxyz, provided they match the other selection criteria: abcxyz*

Placeholder

% – A placeholder is a percent sign (%) character that substitutes for one character in a specific location in a search string. A placeholder can be used in one of the following ways:

At the end of a search string. This use of the placeholder returns all members of the search field that begin with the characters in the search string preceding the placeholder, plus any one additional character at the end.
Multiple times within a search string. This use of the placeholder returns all members of the search field that are the same length as the search string, but with any characters substituted in place of the placeholders.

Example: Name Mask Location Fields

In this example a wildcard and a placeholder are both used to name mask a Location specification on the CA Endevor Quick-Edit Option panel. If F%N* is entered in the SYSTEM field, a selection list will be returned that includes all Systems that have F as the first character, any one character as the second character, and N as the third character. The list could include the following matches: FDNACCT, FIN1, FIN15A, FDNPAY, and so on.