CL Tricks

Some stuff which makes it easier to work directly with commands in CL:

Wildcards

Typing just the first (probably easy guessable) part of a command, followed by an asterisk (*) and pressing Enter makes the system present a list of all available commands with an accompanying short explanation. Type a 1 into the corresponding line and and press Enter to invoke that command.

Multiply Expanded Help Facility

• Pressing F4 instead of Enter to send a command opens up a form for completing the command options.
  • Pressing F4 while the cursor is at a specific position opens up another panel with a brief description of available choices.
  • Pressing F1 while the cursor is at a specific position opens up a help text for that particular option.
    • Pressing F20 (Shift-F8) zooms the help text window over the complete screen.

To learn how the command will be actually called after filling out the corresponding form, press F14 (Shift-F2).

Default options for commands can be changed with chgcmddft.

To learn the keywords along the displayed form, press F11.