Customizing Messages

This section explains how to modify ISMF messages and how to add your own messages. It is divided into two sections, Modifying ISMF Messages, and Creating New Messages.

Modifying ISMF Messages

This section discusses finding, changing, and creating a message. Some restrictions to keep in mind follow.

Restrictions

Do not change the names of any of the variables contained in ISMF messages.
Do not change the message number.
Short messages cannot exceed 24 characters.
Long messages cannot exceed 78 characters.
Message text can be entered in upper and lower case, but the other fields in the message—the message number, variables, keywords, and the help panel ID—must be in uppercase.
When you change the text of a message you should change the corresponding message help panel.

Finding the Message You Want to Change

To find the message you want to change you need to know the message number. The message number is listed at the top of each message help panel (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Identifying the Message Number

 HELP-----------------------------ISMF MESSAGE------------------------------HELP
 COMMAND ===>

    MESSAGE NUMBER:  DGTUS009

    SHORT MESSAGE:   COMPRESS FAILED

    LONG MESSAGE:
  COMPRESS terminated with a return code of 12

Related ISMF short and long messages are stored together in members of the message library. To determine where the message you want to change is stored, truncate the last digit of the message number. This will give you the member name. Thus, the message DGTUS009 is stored in DGTUS00 with other messages that begin with DGTUS00.

Making the Change

Once you have identified the member where the message is stored, you are ready to make the change. Modify the message and save your changes. Then modify the message help panel that is pointed to by HELP. For example, to change message DGTUS009, you would edit the message itself in member DGTUS00 and the related text in the message help panel DGTMUS09. Figure 2 shows the entry in the message library for DGTUS009. The HELP field is highlighted.

Figure 2. Changing the Short and Long Messages

DGTUS001   '&DGTCMDNM FAILED     '    .HELP= DGTMUS01   .ALARM= YES
'An error occurred while processing the &DGTCMDNM list command

DGTUS002   '&DGTCMDNM FAILED     '    .HELP= DGTMUS02   .ALARM= YES
'An error occurred while processing the &DGTCMDNM list command

DGTUS005   '&DGTCSMSG            '    .HELP= DGTMUS05   .ALARM= YES
'&DGTCLMSG;

DGTUS006   '&CURLIOP FAILED      '    .HELP= DGTMUS06   .ALARM= YES
'&CURLIOP line operator failed due to an ISMF internal error

DGTUS007   '&DGTCMDNM CANCELLED    '                    .ALARM= YES
'&DGTCMDNM terminated with a return code of 4

DGTUS008   '&DGTCMDNM FAILED       '                    .ALARM= YES
'&DGTCMDNM terminated with a return code of &DGTRCODE;

DGTUS009   '&DGTCSMSG            '    .HELP= DGTMUS09   .ALARM= YES
'&DGTCLMSG;

Creating New Messages

You can use the procedures for message definition described in ISPF Dialog Management Services to add your messages to those provided by ISMF. When you add messages you should consider:

Message numbers: Make sure that the message numbers you assign do not duplicate existing ones.

Consistency: ISMF uses short and long messages, and message help panels to identify errors. If you add short messages, you should add the supporting long messages and message help panels. The style of the message help panels should be consistent with ISMF panels.