Begging the group's foregiveness in case my post is too far afield,
I'd like to ask whether anyone familiar with CICS can help me solve
the following problem.    

How do I modify the "tab order" for map fields in CICS?  That is,
when I hit the tab key, the cursor moves from field to field in a
given order.  I've represented that order below by adding numbers
in parens.:

Name: (1)                       ID NUM: (2)
Addr: (3)                       PIN NO: (4)
City: (5)                       CREDIT: (6)

What I would rather have is:

Name: (1)                       ID NUM: (4)
Addr: (2)                       PIN NO: (5)
City: (3)                       CREDIT: (6)

I seem to recall that CICS takes rows over columns?  I have only
one book on CICS at home this weekend (silent on the subject, of
course) . . . so I'm hoping someone can point me in the right
direction.

Thanks much.

JS

PS -- I watch the group regularly, so this is not one of those
"please e-mail the response" . . . but, since this might be too
far afield to be of interest to the group, e-mail is cool by me.

3270 datastream assumes that the map is an array of bytes.  The real
problem is that, in a 3270 device, the tab key is NOT an
attention-interrupt key.  The tabbing actually occurs on the terminal,
and is never transmitted to the host!  You have to press an
attention-interrupt key (DFHENTER, PA1, PA2, any PFkey) in order to
initiate a transmission to the host.  At that time the entire screen is
transmitted, including current cursor position.  But if you just press
the "tab" key, the cursor is moved at the local terminal and NOTHING is
sent to the host.

My experience with CICS BMS map programming is not as extensive as
non-screen CICS programming.  Maybe someone else knows a solution, but my
experience suggests that there is no way to alter the tabbing sequence.

I wish this was better news for you.

Arnold Trembley
Software Engineer I (just a job title, still a programmer)
MasterCard International
St. Louis, Missouri

--
Andy Styles.

     /o/-------------------------------------/o/


   \o\. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .\o\
   /o/ My opinions are my own, and do not  /o/
  /o/ reflect those of Ford Motor Company /o/

What you're trying to do (change the tab order) might best be
accomplished with a 3270 GUI front-end.  IBM sells one called
VisualGen.  You develop the GUI using drag-and-drop visual programming
under OS/2.  The resulting executable can run on Windows 3.1 and OS/2.
This allows stuff like radio buttons, drop down lists, etc.
--

Director, Computer Technology   http://www.mmc.org
Maine Medical Center            
Portland, ME  04101

"Tab Order" is not an issue of CICS as much as it is an issue in
3270 datastreams.  The 3270 tab key moves the cursor to the
beginning of the next "enterable" field on the screen from top to
bottom, left to right.  Certain 3270 devices (most newer ones)
support extended attributes, one of which permits defining a field
as a "trigger" field.  This field could be used to cause an
automatic transmission to the host application upon tabbing out of
the field.  At this point the program could protect the fields
already entered (assuming they are all valid), unprotect the
fiedls in the second column, and reposition the cursor in the
first field in the second column.  I've never used this facility
but you can find more data regarding it in the IBM 3270
Information Display System Data Stream Programmer's Guide.  As an
alternative, try something different in your screen mapping, I've
built many very useable screens without resorting to auto-enter
triggers which are unsupported by the screen-mapping utility that
I use.  Remember, the 3270 terminal was basically a "smart"
buffered device that was supposed to offload keystroke processing
to an external box to releive the mainframe from looking at every
keystroke ... By today's standards the 3270 is now a very dumb
terminal.

--
Kevin P Corkery
Independent Consultant