Overview of File Manager® editor display mode

We refer to different views of data as the display mode. File Manager® editor provides three different display modes for data stored in various resources:

  1. Formatted/Table mode: Displays data in a table, and each column represents a field within a layout of a template or copybook.
  2. Character mode: Displays data as text.
  3. Single mode: Displays data about the currently selected record in the editor, either in Formatted or Character mode.

Formatted/Table mode

Formatted/Table mode displays records in a table using a specified template or copybook. Each column in the table represents a filed within the currently selected layout of the template being applied for the current edit session. This mode allows the user to view and manipulate records in a formatted manner. The typical usage of the formatted display mode is to manipulate binary data of types which are difficult to manipulate by hand.

Formatted/Table mode
Formatted display

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Character mode

Character mode display records in text format. The text displayed is derived from the binary data stored in the specified resource in the current edit session, and interpreted according to the encoding specified when the editor is invoked. Character mode provides a user experience similar to that of typical text editor, with a few aspects modified to suit the mainframe environment.

Character mode
Character dislay

Because of the inherited restriction of what can be done to records stored in a resource on z/OS® environment (e.g. record length, INPLACE edit, ordering etc), we provide a comprehensive indication when something is not valid according to the characteristics of the resource being edited. See the picture below as an example. The screen shot was taken during an edit session of a KSDS data set with INPLACE edit option.

Error indication in Character mode
Error display in single mode

As you can see in the picture, a line which contains more data than what the underlying record can hold is highlighted as errors (red foreground with grayed background). The lines 11 and 12 are also highlighted as errors due to "invalid insertion", because insertion of new records is not allowed in INPLACE edit mode.

When you try to validate the current editor contents, the editor provides information as to whether any errors exist in the current edit session. See the dialog box below. At this point, the user has the option to review the error(s) and can choose to either:

  1. Proceed to next step by ignoring errors (with potential loss of data which is in error, see below)
  2. Cancel and fix the problems

Error reporting dialog in Character mode
Error dialog in character mode

If you choose to ignore errors and proceed, the editor will attempt to fix the error automatically:

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Single mode

Single mode view allows you to edit and view one record at a time in either Single Mode (formatted according to the current template layout) or Dump Mode (dump format of a record in hexadecimal value and its EBCDIC translation). The Single mode display is implemented as a view in Eclipse. You can open the view by selecting Window --> Show View --> Other.... Then select Single Mode Editor under File Manager category.

The content of Single mode editor is populated based on the selection in the File Manager editor. If you have multiple edit sessions opened, then currently active/selected editor's record will be shown in the view. Using the view, you can modify the values of currently selected record.

Using the controls provided at the top of Single mode view, you can navigate to a record before/after the currently selected record. You can also switch between the Single Mode and Dump Mode by selecting the option in the combo box.

Single Mode Display
Single Mode Image
Dump Mode Display
Dump Mode Image

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