What's new in this release?
Version 1.0.1 adds further
enhancements to the CICS Explorer™:
- The new System z/OS perspective containing a set of new views
to help you manage your System z artifacts. These views are named
Data Sets, Jobs, z/OS Unix Files, and Console.
- The ability to export and import system connection details using
the new Connection Export/Import page in the Connection Preferences
view. You can export your connections as an .xml file.
This file can be edited, shared with other users, and imported into
other CICS Explorer instances.
- A new breadcrumb trail is displayed in the editor view
that shows the location of a resource.
- The ability to view system initialization table (SIT) parameters,
SIT overrides, or a combination of both. You cannot, however, see
changes in the values of parameters that were made after startup using
system programming interface commands.
- Four new Operations views have been added in this version. These
views are named CMAS to CMAS Links view, Journal Models view, Journal
Names view, and Stream Names view.
- One new Administration view named CMAS to CMAS Link Definitions
view.
- A System z/OS Quick Tips section has been added to the documentation.
This topic is intended to provide short answers to frequently asked
questions about the System z/OS perspective.
The What's New topic in the CICS Explorer help documentation describes
the new and changed items in more detail. To display the topic, click .
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System requirements and prerequisites
The
following minimum hardware levels are required to run the CICS Explorer:
- CPU - Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent.
- RAM - 768 MB in addition to the operating system requirements.
- Hard disk - 500 MB available space.
The following levels of operating system software are
required to install the CICS
Explorer:
- Microsoft Windows XP 32-bit
- Microsoft Windows Vista 32-bit
- Microsoft Windows 7 32-bit
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003 32-bit
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008 32-bit
- Red Hat Linux V5 32-bit
The following prerequisite PTFs must be installed on the
following versions of CICS®:
- CICS Transaction Server
for z/OS® Version 4 release
1
- CICS TS V4 APAR PK90112
is required for all new functions and views that interact with the CICS CSD file.
- CICS TS V4 APAR PK94205
is required to use the HTTP EP adapter functions.
- CICS TS V4 APAR PM08661
is required to use the new JVM server Disable actions: PHASEOUT, PURGE, FORCEPURGE,
and KILL.
- CICSPlex SM APAR PM15214 is required for the new SIT support.
- CICS TS V4 APAR PM15583
is required for the new SIT support.
- CICS Transaction Server
for z/OS Version 3 release
2
- PTF UK38402
- PTF UK27327
- PTF UK43915
- CICS Transaction Server
for z/OS Version 3 release
1:
-
If you are installing the CICS Explorer SDK, the following versions
of software are required:
- Java Runtime Environment
(JRE) version 1.6 or higher.
- Eclipse platform version 3.4.2 with the Eclipse RSE FTP v.3.0.3
plug-ins.
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Updating an existing version of CICS Explorer
If
you already have the CICS
Explorer installed on your workstation you can use the Software
Updates function to update the code to the latest level, without having
to re-install the product. Instructions are in the task Checking
for and installing software updates in the CICS Explorer help documentation. To
access the task from the main CICS
Explorer menu:
Note: When the CICS Explorer update is
complete you must follow the same procedure to update any CICS tools plug-ins that are installed
in the CICS Explorer.
If you do not, the tools might not work with the latest version of CICS Explorer.
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Downloading the CICS Explorer
If you are
developing a third-party application to run as a plug-in in CICS Explorer, you must
download the CICS Explorer SDK
and install it into an existing Eclipse environment. See the next
section for details.
You must select the CICS Explorer files for your operating
system:
- For the Windows operating
system
- cicsts_explorer_win32_v1010.zip
- For the Linux operating
system
- cicsts_explorer_linux_v1010.tar.gz
To download the CICS Explorer compressed file for Windows or Linux:
- Click the download link for the relevant operating system.
- In the dialog box that appears, select "Save" and save it in a
temporary directory.
- When the download is complete, extract the contents of the compressed
file to any writable directory of your choice, for example;
- C:\Program Files\Explorer on Windows
- ~/Explorer on Linux.
Ensure that the directory you choose does not contain any other
files.
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Downloading the CICS Explorer SDK
The CICS Explorer SDK must
be installed into an existing Eclipse environment. The filename for
the CICS Explorer SDK
is:
- cicsts_explorer_sdk_v1010.zip
To download the CICS
Explorer SDK compressed file:
- Click the CICS Explorer SDK
download link.
- Save the zip file in a temporary directory on your workspace.
for example, c:\temp on Windows,
or your home directory on Linux.
Do NOT unzip the file.
- Install the CICS Explorer SDK
into your Eclipse environment.
Note: If you get the message: Cannot
complete the install because one or more required items could not
be found, and you are installing the plug-in with Eclipse
version 3.5 or version 3.6, select the Contact all update
sites during install to find required software checkbox
in the Install new software > Install dialog
and retry the operation.
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Launching the CICS Explorer
To launch the CICS Explorer, locate and
double-click the file cicsexplorer.exe (cicsexplorer on Linux), located in a subdirectory called CICS_Explorer.
The first time CICS Explorer starts,
the welcome screen is displayed.
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Getting started
The CICS Explorer help documentation
is integrated with the product and includes a basic tutorial and instructions
on configuring a connection. To display the CICS Explorer basic tutorial perform
one of the following actions:
- From the welcome screen, click the Tutorials icon.
The icon names are displayed when you hover over them.
- From the main menu bar, click:
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Known issues and limitations
The
following limitations exist in CICS
Explorer version 1.0.1:
Important: It is a limitation of Eclipse 3.4.2, that
before you can revert to a previous version of CICS Explorer you must
have access to an update site containing the source code for the previous
level. You can download the update site source code from the IBM Fix
central Web site located at
http://www.ibm.com/support/fixcentral.
- You cannot install remote resources using CICS Explorer version 1.0.1.
- You can set your help search scope to search the CICS TS 4.1 information center. Setting the
search scope to include previous version of the CICS TS information
centers is not supported and might cause errors.
- The column sorting function is not enabled in CICS Explorer version 1.0.1.
- The Eclipse software update function does not fully support Eclipse
Update-Sites secured with HTTP Basic Authentication. If you are connecting
to an Eclipse update site that prompts for a username and password,
you should not select the option to save your password when prompted,
because CICS Explorer does
not provide a method for changing your password once set. If the password
is not saved, then it must be entered each time the CICS Explorer connects to the update
site. If a password is saved and subsequently needs changing, manual
editing of configuration files would be required.
A problem has been identified when running the CICS Explorer on the Linux platforms Ubuntu 9.10 and Fedora 12.
These platforms are NOT supported by the IBM CICS Explorer, however
there is a workaround that you can use if you want to use these unsupported
platforms.
The problem relates to issues between the GTK and
Mozilla releases and the SWT implementation in Eclipse 3.4.2 on which
the CICS Explorer is
currently based. The issue you might experience is that buttons in
the CICS Explorer might
not respond to mouse clicks, but will work from the keyboard.
The
workaround is to launch the cicsexplorer executable
from the shell script below:
#!/bin/bash
export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1
./cicsexplorer $*
As previously stated, the Linux platforms Ubuntu 9.10 and
Fedora 12 are unsupported.
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