Action bars give you another way to move through ISPF. Most ISPF
panels have action bars at the top; the choices appear on the screen
in white by default. Many panels also have point-and-shoot text fields,
which appear in turquoise by default. The panel shown in Figure 1 has both.
If you use a non-programmable terminal to access ISPF and you do
not want to take advantage of the command nesting function, you can
make selections by typing a selection number and pressing Enter.
If the cursor is located somewhere on the panel, there are several
ways to move it to the action bar:
- Use the cursor movement keys to manually place the cursor on an
action bar choice.
- Type ACTIONS on the command line and press Enter to move the cursor
to the first action bar choice.
- Press F10 (Actions) or the Home key to move the cursor to the
first action bar choice.
If mnemonics are defined for action bar
choices, you can:
- In 3270 mode, on the command line, type ACTIONS and the mnemonic
letter that corresponds to an underscored letter in the action bar
choice text. This results in the display of the pull-down menu for
that action bar choice.
- In 3270 mode, on the command line enter the mnemonic letter that
corresponds to an underscored letter in the action bar choice text,
and press the function key assigned to the ACTIONS command. This results
in the display of the pull-down menu for that action bar choice.
- In GUI mode, you can use a hot key to access a choice on
an action bar or on a pull-down menu; that is, you can press the ALT
key in combination with the mnemonic letter that is underscored in
the choice text to activate the text.
Use the tab key to move the cursor among the action bar choices.
If you are running in GUI mode (see Running in GUI mode,
use the right and left cursor keys.
Note: - ISPF does not provide a mouse emulator program. This document
uses select in conjunction with point-and-shoot text fields
and action bar choices to mean moving the cursor to a field and simulating
Enter.
Some users program their mouse emulators as follows:
- Mouse button 1: position the cursor to the pointer and simulate
Enter
- Mouse button 2: simulate F12 (Cancel)
- If you want the Home key to position the cursor at the first input
field on an ISPF panel, type SETTINGS on any command
line and press Enter to display the ISPF Settings panel. Deselect
the "Tab to action bar choices" option.
- If you are running in GUI mode, the Home key takes you to the
beginning of the current field.
When you select one of the choices on the action bar, ISPF displays
a pull-down menu.
The action bar choices available vary from panel to panel, as do
the choices available from their pull-downs. However, Menu and Utilities
are basic action bar choices, and the choices on their pull-down menus
are always the same.