Do you only use two split screens in ISPF? Do you ever wish you had more? The SS ISPF command may be what you are looking for.

Several releases ago IBM introduced the START command. This is similar to the SPLIT command, except that it starts a whole new session completely independent of the original screen. While SPLIT and SWAP would only allow you two sessions, the START command allows you up to eight independent sessions. Other new commands were SCRNAME, used to name your newly started session; the SWAP LIST command, which allows you to list all active sessions with the screen names you gave them; and the SWAP NEXT/PREV command, which allows you to roll through your existing sessions.

The problem with all these commands is that they are very wordy and difficult to remember, and consquently don't add much productivity. To get around this, I created the SS command. The SS command combines all the commands above. You can use it to start new sessions specifying the menu options off the ISPF main menu (such as 'SS 1.2' for edit, or 'SS 3.4' for dataset list), or a valid ISPF command in your customized commands table. In addition, a user-customizable table is also searched to see if the shortcut you entered exists, and executes the corresponding command if a match is found.

To navigate to an existing session, enter the same SS command again. In other words, you can enter 'SS TLMS' to start a tape management session, 'SS 3.4' to get to dataset list, and 'SS SCHED' to use your schedular. Entering 'SS TLMS' will then return you to the TLMS screen. 'SS 3.4' will return you to the dataset list. 'SS SCHED' will return you to the schedular, etc.

Entering SS by itself will give you a list of screens from which you can select (similar to windows task list).

To create your own commands, enter 'SS /' and you'll be presented with your own personal SS shortcut table which you can customize any way you want. If you have a dataset that you want to edit in its own special session, you can copy the PARM1 entry on the table and specify the dataset name where indicated, and give it a unique session name.

To make it easier to roll though your sessions, for each application you use, including the main ISPF menu, enter the 'KEYS' command, and change the 'SWAP' key to read 'SWAP NEXT'. Make sure you logoff cleanly to save your changes (don't time out).

To enable you to use your entire screen size for all started sessions, go into your ISPF general options and turn off the 'Always show split line'. This way the split line will only show up if you actually split on a row not on the border of the screen.

When you first logon to ISPF, or if you use the SPLIT or START commands, the initial session name is blank. The SS command is set up to rename these sessions to INITx to make it easier to swap back to these sessions. So if you see screens with the name INITx, you know where they came from.

It may take some getting used to doing things this way, but does saves a lot of time in the long run.

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