Defining CICS screens with the BMS Map Editor

BMS Screen Design is a function of the BMS Map Editor. This tool provides visual creation and modification of BMS map sets. A BMS map set defines a screen for a CICS® application. The BMS Map Editor is designed for CICS developers who are familiar with terminal-based tools such as SDF II or GUI-based tools such as the BMS Map Editor included with VisualAge® COBOL.

For a step-by-step guide through many of the BMS Map Editor options, see the Using the BMS Map Editor.

What's new

Set auxiliary alignment hairlines in the BMS Map Editor: To add vertical or horizontal guides to the Design page, click the vertical or horizontal ruler. You can align fields by attaching them to a guide. You can also move a guide on the Design page so that all fields that are attached to the guide move along with it.; To delete a guide, select it and press the Delete key. Undo/Redo is supported for the guide actions. The guide is shown only if the ruler is visible. Turning the ruler on or off is available as a preference option. The default for TUI-based editors is to show the rulers.
Ability to copy and move a field by using Ctrl+mouse: You can select and copy one or more fields by using the Ctrl key. Keeping the Ctrl key pressed, select one or more items and move the mouse to a location on the screen. Then, release first the mouse button and then the Ctrl key. This action creates a copy of the selected fields at the current mouse location. The relative locations of the selected fields are retained in the copy.
Note: The standard way of copying an item to the clipboard and then pasting it in the Design page is still available.

Editor features

BMS map sets and their associated projects are listed in the Project Explorer view. The Palette view provides both click-and-drop and drag-and-drop access to the BMS map components. The editor provides more capability with the Outline and Properties views.

The BMS Map Editor provides the following pages for designing and viewing a map set:

Design: Contains the Design canvas and display customization options, including map filtering. Pop-up menus provide more formatting and display options.
Source: Provides a text editor for editing the map set file code directly. To make this page read-only, set an option on the BMS Map Editor preference page.
Preview: Provides terminal-style and web preview modes.

Creating and editing map sets

You can use the new map set wizard to create new map set files in an existing local project or remote MVS™ subproject. You can also create a BMS map set file directly on the remote system.

Within certain perspectives, you can import an existing file structure into a workspace. You can also use the BMS Map Editor to work with a map set on the remote system.

Object properties

To see the properties of a field, map, or map set, select the item in the Outline view. The properties are displayed in the Properties view. You can also view and configure a map set component by using the Design page menu.