Action bars

Action bars give you another way to move through ISPF. Most ISPF panels have action bars at the top; the choices appear on the screen in white by default. Many panels also have point-and-shoot text fields, which appear in turquoise by default. The panel shown in Figure 1 has both.

If you use a non-programmable terminal to access ISPF and you do not want to take advantage of the command nesting function, you can make selections by typing a selection number and pressing Enter.

If the cursor is located somewhere on the panel, there are several ways to move it to the action bar:

Use the cursor movement keys to manually place the cursor on an action bar choice.
Type ACTIONS on the command line and press Enter to move the cursor to the first action bar choice.
Press F10 (Actions) or the Home key to move the cursor to the first action bar choice.
If mnemonics are defined for action bar choices, you can:
- In 3270 mode, on the command line, type ACTIONS and the mnemonic letter that corresponds to an underscored letter in the action bar choice text. This results in the display of the pull-down menu for that action bar choice.
- In 3270 mode, on the command line enter the mnemonic letter that corresponds to an underscored letter in the action bar choice text, and press the function key assigned to the ACTIONS command. This results in the display of the pull-down menu for that action bar choice.
- In GUI mode, you can use a hot key to access a choice on an action bar or on a pull-down menu; that is, you can press the ALT key in combination with the mnemonic letter that is underscored in the choice text to activate the text.

Use the tab key to move the cursor among the action bar choices. If you are running in GUI mode (see Running in GUI mode, use the right and left cursor keys.

Note:

ISPF does not provide a mouse emulator program. This document uses select in conjunction with point-and-shoot text fields and action bar choices to mean moving the cursor to a field and simulating Enter.
Some users program their mouse emulators as follows:
- Mouse button 1: position the cursor to the pointer and simulate Enter
- Mouse button 2: simulate F12 (Cancel)
If you want the Home key to position the cursor at the first input field on an ISPF panel, type SETTINGS on any command line and press Enter to display the ISPF Settings panel. Deselect the "Tab to action bar choices" option.
If you are running in GUI mode, the Home key takes you to the beginning of the current field.

When you select one of the choices on the action bar, ISPF displays a pull-down menu.

The action bar choices available vary from panel to panel, as do the choices available from their pull-downs. However, Menu and Utilities are basic action bar choices, and the choices on their pull-down menus are always the same.