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Show Library resources in CICS view

@FALLAI-Denis

We want to use LIBRARY resources in test environments to activate on-demand versions of programs in development:

the CICS test environment works with loadlibs declared in DFHRPL (they could also be declared by LIBRARY resources)
the CICS test environment is permanent and shared by all project teams
each member of a project team compiles (User Build) in a loadlib which is dedicated to the project, (the Db2 objects are common, and the Db2 PLAN contains all the packages, those of the programs in DFHRPL and those of the programs in loadlibs managed in LIBRARY, by playing on the VERSION parameter of Db2 precompilation)
to perform a test, the project team activates its LIBRARY, its programs therefore become active (with a PHASE IN)
at the end of the test, the project team deactivates its LIBRARY, it is the programs in DFHRPL which become active again (with a PHASE IN)
This is a solution that we are currently implementing as part of the switch to CI/CD mode on the mainframe.
This addresses the need to test User Builds triggered from a feature or hotfix branch in a Git workflow (Gitflow).

This allows us to save on the number of CICS test environments, while waiting for a solution to virtualize these environments, (probably Wazi Sandbox).

So we need a way to easily ENAble and DISable a LIBRARY resource, or query the status of a LIBRARY resource.

We also need to list the programs contained in a LIBRARY resource (which can consist of several loadlibs) to trigger the PHASE INs.

The declaration of the LIBRARY resource is made in an automated project initialization process, and its deletion is subordinated to the end of life action of the project.

Show Attributes for a CICS resource shows two columns, one for the Attribute name and one for the Value.

The request is for a user to be able to show multiple resource attributes side by side, with multi-select and Show Attributes menu action which currently opens one view per resource, to instead allow a single Attribute view to be opened that has a Value column for each selected resource. Also retain the Search Attribute box to allow the list to be narrowed.

Use case is where there are CICS web services and the sysprog wants to query the status across a group to check the status of all web services across a number of regions to see if any need attention.

In Zowe Explorer 2.8 the Zowe Explorer for IBM CICS fails to load, with a busy cursor and no completion.
In an environment where the extension is already loaded no tree data is shown and when trying to add a connection from the list of profiles the following error occurs.

Is your feature or enhancement request related to a problem or limitation? Please describe

There seems to be an entire set of APIs that were only implemented in the CICS VSCE repo.

Describe your enhancement idea

Now that this is a monorepo, we should:

• migrate those to the SDK
• expose them through the plug-in

Currently the tree shows ManagedRegion. MAXTASK is an attribute on the CICS region table however.

Possible Design
Have "Show Managed Attributes" and also "Show Region Attributes" to allow opening of the attributes page for each of the base tables.

add CICSDb2Transaction in the src/api/constants/CicsCmci.constants.ts

Individual resources (Program, File, Transaction) have particular icons used in the tree
It'd be good to use these icons in the attributes editor so they appear at the top of the editor and also are visible in the list of open editors when a user does a Ctrl+P

Low Priority: The majority of GIFs in the README.md file are outdated in terms of the icons that are used for resources. Update them with newer screen recordings.

Load the Zowe Explorer for IBM CICS into VS Code.

Edit zowe.config.json and the "cics" profile type is not valid.

Temporary fix to load the CLI CICS profile, which adds "cics" but the value should have been introduced ideally when the VS Code extension was added.

                        "type": {
                            "description": "Profile type",
                            "type": "string",
                            "enum": [
                                "zosmf",
                                "tso",
                                "ssh",
                                "cics",
                                "base"
                            ]

Provide a way to run a CICS transaction, perhaps using a modify command on a CICS region ?

Users want to do a NewCopy on definitions in a CSD and then install them into the regions managed by the CSD

Proposed Idea

Show CSDs beneath a connection. In a plex connect to every region's LOCALFILE table to work out its CSD VSAM file name and from this have a map of which CSD a region is using.
From this show the CSDs, and allow the definitions to be shown. ? How do we know which region to connect through ?
For install can we allow a single definition to be installed across all of the regions that the CSD manages ?

Allow the user to view DB2 transactions and filter / show attributes and purge

Create a new Zowe CLI command to define a CICS BUNDLE resource (zowe cics define bundle).

The CICS bundle deployment API works really well with gradle to easily develop and deploy Java applications to CICS, however it requires the bundle definition to exist already. In sandbox environments it would be really useful to have a straightforward way to create the bundle instead of using resource builder and DFHCSDUP, or the other more traditional alternatives, and the zowe CLI would be a great option.

If SMSS system is in use, there is an unneeded tree with the Region Applid.

If the system is an SMSS system, append the region applid to the profile node label and show programs, transactions and localfiles directly underneath.

• Categorise attributes from in 'Show Attributes' webview into different sections like the IBM CICS Explorer (IBM Explorer for z/OS) and make it more user-friendly
• Include 'help' tab that gives more information about attributes

Allow users to have interaction model through web to be able to develop CICS applications.

Have set up the CICS plugin in VScode, defined connection to a CICS WUI server, but it is not able to connect, I get an icon like red "no entry" sign

I can connect to the CICS WUI all ok from CICS SM Explorer in zOS Explorer on the same PC, so I know I have the correct settings to use to connect

Target CICS is V6.1 on zOS 2.5

VSCode is latest download as I set this up all new in last few days

Not using SSL/TLS to connect

No msgs in CICS or zOS syslog

Any advice on how to find out why cannot connect from VSCode ?

The CICS extension does not create a CICS view on a Windows machine. Investigate why this is happening and which operating systems/platforms are affected.

Currently, when right-clicking 'Show Attributes' on a Region, the data is retrieved from a CICS 'Regions' table if the region is not part of a CICS Plex, whereas regions in a plex hit the 'Managed Regions' table.

Users may want to see attributes from the 'Regions' table e.g. Max tasks as well as attributes from 'Managed Region' table.

Idea 1

• Have a separate menu action for viewing regions and managed regions attributes

Idea 2

• Combine both managed region and regions table attributes into 'Show Atrributes' so users can search for all attributes in one place (ideal)
• May lead to complications in the future when making the attributes editable

With the addition of more resources, users should be able to choose which resources they see in their CICS view via Settings (UI).

Proposed UI: Users open Settings (UI) and then can select/unselect checkboxes to choose which resources to display. They should be able to then apply these changes by refreshing the window.

Changes required:

1. Update package.json to add these checkboxes
2. Add resource children to regions container based on which checkboxes are selected (remember to do the same for the 'All' trees!)
3. Filtering on a Regions container currently shows options for all the resources. This should be changed so that the options shown depend on which resource checkboxes are selected.

Is your feature or enhancement request related to a problem or limitation? Please describe

Currently, we specify every dependency as a noExternal in the tsup.config.js file.

Describe your enhancement idea

We shouldn't have to duplicate the VSCE-unique dependencies in the tsup.config.js file

Describe alternatives you've considered

N/A

Provide any additional context

This may be a result of excessive hoisting happening on npm install

If two systems are expanded and a command that updates the resource label, e.g. new copy, is fired on a resource that's shared between both systems, only the currently selected resource label updates. The user will need to collapse and re-expand the parent node of the element in the other system to view the change.

The updating of both profile resources should be done automatically.

Currently there are settings that use the name to try and build up an exclusion NOT list of resources so that when a customer opens their programs/local files/transactions they don't see the DFH*, CE*, ... ones and only see the ones that represent that application resources in the region.

Rather than using name, it may be better to use DEFINESOURCE. If by default we exclude SYSTEM and DFH* that looks as though it is more effective that using name.

We should allow a user to extend the list to include vendor DEFINESOURCE values as well.
We could model the UI based on how VS Code allows users to add filters to restrict the files they see, where values are entered and combined together, rather than have a raw CRITERIA value (which makes it more error prone as a mistake in the field value would cause a bad request to be made)

The graphic

is using an old CICS logo.
We have been told there is a newer graphic, so this issue is to track getting the newer graphic and creating a new overlay with the Zowe icon and updating the one used in the marketplace branding

Investigate having favorites for CICS resources similar to the way Zowe Explorer does Data Sets/USS/JES where grouped resources across connections can be retrieved and actioned on

Create profile https://github.com/zowe/vscode-extension-for-cics#create-profile states ...The connection must point to a CICS region's CICS Management Client Interface (CMCI) TCP/IP host name and port number. The region can be a WUI server in a CICSPlex, or else a stand-alone Single Management Application Programming (SMSS) region. Would be helpful to make the CICS z/OS pre-reqs more visible (feedback from CICS BP conference).

Like Zowe Explorer and the FTP extension 🙂 Some advantages of webpack are that it makes the VSIX install and launch faster.

• Work with Open Mainframe Project Cobol Training Course to include the VSCode CICS plugin
• Install CICS in the zCOBOL system

Note: this issue is not directly linked to the development of the CICS extension

Discuss with CICS COBOL developers and other users which resources may be most beneficial for their use case in addition to the current 'Programs', 'Local Transactions' and 'Local Files' and implement them.

If we have the following 4 programs loaded:

and we click on "View 4 more..." to obtain 8 program resources in total now:

If a disable command is applied on one of the subsequently loaded programs, the state of the program resource goes back to showing 4 rather than keeping 8 resources in the viewing stage and the user would have to click "View 4 more..." to see the disabled program.

** Problem **
A User was trying to connect and had their password wrong, but didn't get any visual feedback so it was revoked after a few attempts and they needed to get it reset

** Solution **
Show the 401 error message (which the rNext Zowe Explorer has) but also deal with 401 specially to let the user know it's because authentication failed with bad credentials.
It could be good also to have an "Open Profile" button against the error message to allow the user to quickly open their profile and remedy the password.
With TSO login it's possible to distinguish between bad user ID and bad password, however for the 401 response from CICS it may not be possible to separate the two conditions, so the error message should mention Invalid credentials (wrong userID or password)

I have installed the extension, I have my profile for CICS created and it doesn't show up and it give me this error when I try to add.

Error running command cics-extension-for-zowe.addSession: command 'cics-extension-for-zowe.addSession' not found. This is likely caused by the extension that contributes cics-extension-for-zowe.addSession.

• zFernand0#11
• zFernand0#12
• Close the following PRs:
  • zowe/vscode-extension-for-cics#327
  • zowe/vscode-extension-for-cics#328

Use error message structure provided through the ZE APIs for CICS extension error message.

Snippet from FTP extension which uses the desired structure:

ZoweVsCodeExtension.showVsCodeMessage(
            "Zowe Explorer was modified for FTP support.",
            MessageSeverityEnum.INFO,
            ZoweLogger
        );

For developers who use the DISPLAY statement for debugging programs, this ends up being written to the CEEMSG JES file for the CICS job.

The request is to provide a point and shoot solution to go from a CICS region to open the CEEMSG file.

Issues to solve:

• How to know the right z/OSMF, FTP, RSE (i.e. base profile) is associated with the CICS profile.
• Existing analogous things are submit job and navigate to job, however this just goes from tree view to tree view. For CICS it may be possible to remove the need for a user to even open the JES view and just go directly to open the CEEMSG file.

ruc.dk

The extension recognizes and uses team config files, but if no team config file is in place and user tries to create profile from CICS view the user is presented with v1 profile creation steps and isn't offered the option to create team config file.

A tree node should not need to be selected for a command palette action to work. If no node is selected, prompt the user to select a profile, then allow them to choose the type and then the name of the resource to perform the command on.

e.g. After a command is chosen from command palette:

1. Select profile prompt

• 3b
• 2c
• ...

2. Select resource prompt

• Program
• local Transaction
• Local File

3. Type in name of resource prompt

The Zowe Explorer for IBM CICS extension should support other plugins to access useful properties of CICS resources and extend its capabilities.

It should provide an API for other VS Code extension to contribute such implementations.

Applying a resource filter, then applying a region filter clears the original resource filter.

Possible fix: Store the resource filter on the plex so that when a region filter is applied, the resource filter can be reapplied on the filtered regions.

Visual enhancement - Consider updating the current folder icons in the CICS view to have a funnel icon next to them after a filter is applied, the same as how Zowe Explorer does it.