Specifying message presentation

Using MPFLSTxx and installation exits, you can control how you want messages to be presented on console screens. You can control color for messages, how you want to highlight messages, or specify the intensity of messages to make them stand out on the screen.

To specify color, highlighting, and intensity for messages, you can use the following statement in MPFLSTxx:

.MSGCOLR: Controls message presentation

Options that you can use for .MSGCOLR are as follows:

msgarea: Allows you to specify color, highlighting, and intensity for message displays
DEFAULT: Specifies that you want to use the IBM® supplied defaults for color, highlighting, and intensity for message displays
NOCHANGE: Specifies that you want to use the values for color, highlighting, and intensity established in the previous MPFLST member in effect; NOCHANGE is the default.

Various values for msgarea allow you to specify color, highlighting, and intensity for the entry area, for different message types or descriptor codes (action messages or WTOR messages, for example), for control lines or data lines, for status displays, and other screen controls.

z/OS MVS Initialization and Tuning Reference contains complete information about IBM defaults for color, highlighting, and intensity in MPFLSTxx.

You can further control color, highlighting, and intensity through installation exits like IEAVMXIT or other exits that your installation can define. You can change the message presentation information (color, highlighting, and intensity) for the message through a parameter list (CTXT) passed to the message processing exit. In the exit, you can modify specific fields in CTXT that control color, highlighting, and intensity.

z/OS MVS Installation Exits contains complete information about IEAVMXIT.