® ibm software group © 2011 ibm corporationlast update: august, 2011 jon sayles, rational system z...

®

IBM Software Group

© 2011 IBM CorporationLast Update: August, 2011

Jon Sayles, Rational System z Products - [email protected]

Setting up, Understanding, Using and Customizing the Rational Developer for System z (RDz) Technical Help Portal

2© 2011 IBM Corporation

IBM Trademarks and Copyrights

© Copyright IBM Corporation 2007,2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012. All rights reserved.

The information contained in these materials is provided for informational purposes only, and is provided AS IS without warranty of any kind, express or implied. IBM shall not be responsible for any damages arising out of the use of, or otherwise related to, these materials. Nothing contained in these materials is intended to, nor shall have the effect of, creating any warranties or representations from IBM or its suppliers or licensors, or altering the terms and conditions of the applicable license agreement governing the use of IBM software. References in these materials to IBM products, programs, or services do not imply that they will be available in all countries in which IBM operates.

This information is based on current IBM product plans and strategy, which are subject to change by IBM without notice. Product release dates and/or capabilities referenced in these materials may change at any time at IBM’s sole discretion based on market opportunities or other factors, and are not intended to be a commitment to future product or feature availability in any way.

IBM, the IBM logo, the on-demand business logo, Rational, the Rational logo, and other IBM Rational products and services are trademarks or registered trademarks of the International Business Machines Corporation, in the United States, other countries or both. Other company, product, or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.


Prerequisites

Before using these slides it is assumed that you: Have Rational Developer for System z (RDz) installed (in order to test your

work) At least the RDz client Any release after 7.6 will suffice

Understand and have used RDz and Eclipse technology – for a period of at least six months

Understand your corporate business developers: Technical needs Corporate policies and practices


The RDz Tech Portal

Extensible Self Service Technical Assistance for RDz


What is the RDz Tech Portal?

The RDz Tech Portal is a set folders with hyper-text links to: Internal technical content within:

Powerpoint files MS-Excel spreadsheets MS-Word files Graphics (.png) files

External URLs to knowledge content on the internet: IBM sites 3rd party sites

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+|If IBM provides a URL to a third party website or other service ||any interaction through the URL is solely between Customer and ||the third party website or service. ||IBM makes no warranties or representations about such third party ||sites or services, and shall have no liability for such third party ||sites or services. Any third party URLs are provided for informational ||purposes only, on an AS IS basis, and solely as a convenience to Customer. |+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+


How Do I Import the Folders in the Tech Portal? (1 of 2)

1. Obtain the .zip file from IBM named: RDzTech.zip

2. Unzip the folder onto a networked drive (or your local workstation if you want to prototype this before moving to a shared environment)

This will create a folder named: RDzTech

3. Launch RDz, and from the File menu, create a New > Example > Workstation COBOL Project

1. Select COBOL Sample 1 and Click Next >

2. Name the Project: RDz Tech Portal and click: Finish

This will create Local Workstation project in your RDz workspace


How Do I Import the Folders in the Tech Portal? (2 of 2)

4. Select and delete the \cobol\ folder directory from the project

5. Select RDz Tech Portal - and from the File menu select: Import…

6. From General select File System

7. From File System browse to your unzipped RDzTech folder

8. Select the folder and click OK

9. In the left hand corner of the File system dialog, check: 11 RDzTech (or where you unzipped the download file)

2. Check the three sub-folder boxes shown here And uncheck .Settings and BuildOutput (if they exist)

3. Ensure that: Into folder: specifies: RDz Tech Portal 4. Click Finish

If you are prompted to over-write .project click OK

This will create a Local Workstation project with resources for RDz training and post-training education (as well as a number of additional useful links)


How Do I Get the Internally-Linked Content for the Portal?

1. Obtain the .zip file from IBM named: RDzTechContent.zip

2. Create a folder-set named: C:\SystemZ\cob\

3. Unzip the folder directly onto your C:\SystemZ\cob\C:\SystemZ\cob\4. This will create the following set of folders\sub-folders

After you have decided what you want to use of this Portal you can move the content to a shared-network drive. This will necessitate that you update links within the files to point to the eventual home of the internal content

Additional note: This is a .zip large file (as of this writing, ~60 meg). It does not include all of the *.wmv RDz multi-medial self-help


Exploring the Folders

There are three high-level folders:1. Corporate Information Systems Resources – which is an area you can customize with:

Links to shared-drives, wikis and other information, conveniently available from inside the RDz Workbench Corporate strategic or tactical information that can be stored as plain-text inside the workbench

2. RDz Resources – a set of folders and sub-folders with RDz technical content such as: Cheat sheets Links to internal/external resources Specific (detailed) technical help and answers to specific questions The RDz Distance Learning programs and the Distance Learning lessons Links to the RDz Distance Learning Powerpoints and multi-media help

3. Technical Education and Resources – a set of folders and sub-folders with z/OS technical education and technical resource links: Language and run-time links Q&A Forums IBM reference manuals and user guides

All of the information in this portal can be used as-is, modified, deleted, and enhanced with your own approach to this type of information and data

Important note: All of the internal links in this portal unzip pointing to: c:\Systemz\cob\education\<sub-folders>. You will need to make adjustments to the file:/// URLs for usage access via a shared network drive


The Corporate Information Resources Folder

This folder contains: Sub-folders for information you might want to organize and hyper-link to for your business units Contacts

By launching a Mailto: link you will open the PC's email client Directions

By launching the Maps link, you will launch a live Google-Maps session inside of RDz Folders for your company's

Development Environments Development Standards Development Tools Production Support – including:

Links to the IMS, VSAM and DB2 return code messages Files that contain "How-To" information on solving common MVS ABEND conditions

It is assumed that this folder – and all sub-folders is the area of the portal you will want to customize the


RDz Resources

This folder contains sub-folders for information for RDz self-help, including:

Standards and Best Practices Accumulated from world-wide product usage – and to be customized to your shop's usage

Cheat Sheets Specific product use case help

Links to your company's internal client-software resources (plug-ins, updates, documentation, etc.) Detailed Technical Help

Broken out by z/OS maintenance use cases RDz Education

The programs and lessons for RDz Distance Learning RDz External help resources – links to:

The RFE system The InfoCenter etc.

This is the most complete, out-of-the-box set of folders and information in the portal.

It is assumed you will want to customize some areas and content (Best Practices, Client Software Resources, etc.)


The Technical Education/Resources Folder

This folder contains sub-folders for information for general z/OS technologies self-help, including:

Languages – HLASM, COBOL, etc. Research of various IBM and 3rd Party sites that contain useful self-help or learning information This information is mostly external (internet-based) – but there are a few internal content links

Run-times – CICS, IMS Ditto

File and Database systems – DL/I, VSAM, DB2 Ditto

Platforms – WebSphere MQ, z/OS Ditto

This set of folders currently contains only information for z/OS technologies.

It is assumed that if this approach to self-service help is found to be useful you can update the folders with education and resources on distributed technologies, etc.


What is in a Content File?

Content files contain information and hyper-linksPress the Ctrl key, and Left-Click the hyper-link to open the URL

inside of the RDz workbench

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/wikis/display/DB2/DB2+on+Campus+videos

Ctrl+1


What Types of Content can be Opened in the Portal?

The Portal – as is – contains references to: External URLs

IBM technical information and resources 3rd Party technical information and resources – please note the disclaimer below

Internal Content: Powerpoint PDF files MS-Word MS-Excel Mailto: links – which open your PC's email client

You may add/delete any of this content as you see fit The internal content will doubtless require you to modify the file:/// URLs – assuming you host the content on a shared networkd drive+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+|If IBM provides a URL to a third party website or other service ||any interaction through the URL is solely between Customer and ||the third party website or service. ||IBM makes no warranties or representations about such third party ||sites or services, and shall have no liability for such third party ||sites or services. Any third party URLs are provided for informational ||purposes only, on an AS IS basis, and solely as a convenience to Customer. |+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+


The RDz Detailed Technical Resources Folder

This folder contains traditional HTML-based content – with hyper-links pointing at .png files hosted on c:/systemz/cob/education/dl/slides

Note that customizing this content requires basic HTML expertise


Searching the RDz Tech PortalYou can use an RDz "File" search to look for content by keyword or topic

1. Right-click over the portal and

select Search…

2. Choose File Search

Note that you might have to Customize… the Search wizard to bring up File Search


Rolling out the Portal

After you have customized the portal and customized/provisioned the help content you have two approaches to implementing – or rolling out the portal to an RDz user community:

1. Make the portal part of a custom workspace – in which case you will: Import the portal into a local workstation project (as per slide 4 of this Powerpoint) Direct the RDz users to utilize the custom workspace

Note – we recommend that you modify the default preference for HTML to be the client browser.

This is under: Window > Preferences > General > File Associations

2. Direct the RDz user community to import the portal into an existing workspace As per slide 4 of this Powerpoint

Quite possibly you will have processes for both of the above approaches


Including the Complete RDz *.wmv Self-Help Multi-Media

The RDz self-training contained in this portal includes a number of audio-less Camtasia (multi-media) files, showing product usage as of version 8.0

Because the individual *.wmv files are so large, it was not practical to provide them via download.However, you can obtain all of the files from: www.jsayles.com/demos/

Downloading (Save As…) and rename the files as follows (note that this is necessary because blanks (spaces) are not allowed in file names as hyperlinks):

Access JES and the Batch Jobs Queue.wmv JES.wmv Connecting to zOS with Remote Systems Explorer.wmv rseconnect.wmv Control Flow Analysis.wmv controlflow.wmv Data Flow Analysis.wmv dataflow.wmv Data Perspective and DB2 Objects.wmv db21.wmv DB2 Test Data.wmv db2testdata.wmv Getting Started and Basic Eclipse.wmv gettingstarted.wmv MVS SubProjects.wmv subp.wmv Navigation and Basic Analysis.wmv eclipsenav.wmv Preferences.wmv pref.wmv Property Groups.wmv propg.wmv RDz and ISPF Edit.wmv ispf.wmv RDz Edit.wmv rdzedit.wmv Remote Systems Explorer and Data Set Utilities.wmv rseispf3 RSE and File Access.wmv rse1.wmv SQL Coding and Testing.wmv sql.wmv zOS File System Mapping.wmv filemap.wmv


Including the RDz Distance Learning Programs and Powerpoints

You can make this Tech Portal (for individual users) smaller in size by deleting the RDz Distance Learning sample programs, JCL, copybooks etc.

And you can delete the Distance Learning Course agenda files

And you can make the Content Folder smaller by deleting the Powerpoint for:\cobol\ - a set of Entry-Level COBOL learning Powerpoints\dl\ - the Distance Learning slides for RDz

Note that you should delete individual Powerpoint files – as the \slides\ sub-folder contains .png screen captures for the Detailed Technical Topics Help


Maintaining and Enhancing the Portal – 1 of 2 – Use of Linked Folders

Instead of creating hard-coded links to the resources in the Tech Portal, you can utilize "Linked Folders" – which dynamically resolve when you open the workspace

Steps to create: Select the Local Workstation project

name (see slide 6) Right-click and add a New Folder Click the Advanced button Check: 1 Link to alternate location

(Linked Folder) Browse to where you unzipped the

RDz Tech Portal .zip file Select each individual sub-folder – and

add it to your project


Maintaining and Enhancing the Portal – 2 of 2 – Additional Considerations

Corporate customization practices:1. It is assumed that you will make a substantial number of customizations to the folders in the Local workstation project:

- Design Add/Change/Delete folders

- Changing/Adding and Deleting URLs and static content

Because of this, you essentially own the design and delivery of the portal

2. For the static material embedded in the files (Best Practices, FAQs, etc.) contact IBM, to see if/when there are significant updates

3. For the local slide decks and contant pointed at with: file:/// URLS You can always get the latest from: https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/wikis/home?lang=en#/wiki/

W2e35a50023ef_4b39_a867_04fb9e1d3329/page/Distance%20Learning%20Resources/attachments This IBM wiki is the "production" content site. New versions of the slides and other collateral are placed there frequently.

Any other questions you may have about this technology, please contact Jon Sayles – [email protected]

® ibm software group © 2011 ibm corporationlast update: august, 2011 jon sayles, rational system z...

Documents