Hotspot Menu

Haven't you wished you had a menu in your Mainframe session, to invoke/ run Mainframe commands, utilities, tools, macros and even Windows applications; with just a click of the mouse?

Well, we can do just that, with the help of EPC’s Hotspots feature.

In the Extra! Client menu select View => Hotspots; in the ‘Assignments’ tab click on ‘Add’ and type in the text for which the Hotspot has to be activated. In the ‘Action’ tab select what action has to be performed when you click the Hotspot. Simple.
Now wherever the ‘Hotspot Text’ you have added appears in your session, you can invoke the action defined for the text with the click of the mouse (you can choose Single click or Double click to invoke the hotspot action in the new version of EPC 8.0; in older versions the hotspot will be activated by Double click)

So now that we have created a hotspot, why not we create a Menu with which we can invoke frequently used utilities, commands, macros, tools, Windows applications etc.?

For eg. my menu might look something like this (click to see pic at 100% zoom):

How do you assign actions to be invoked in the ‘Action’ tab?

If Hotspot text ‘3.4’ should open a new DSLIST screen with a frequently used dataset name: In the ‘Action’ tab select ‘Miscellaneous’ Category, select ‘Send Keys’ (Commands), and assign Keystrokes as “*Home* START 3.4 *Enter* *Tab* TEST.FREQUENT.PDS”

(where *Enter*, *Home* and *Tab* commands can be obtained from the 'Display Keys' list)

If Hotspot text ‘MACRO1’ should execute a Macro, select ‘Macro’ under Category and select ‘Run Macro’ Command and assign the Macro which has to be run.

If ‘ERROR ASSISTANT’ should open the Error Assist software, or if ‘CALC’ should open Calculator; select Application=> Run Application and assign the exe to be run. (For eg: to run Texpad you will assign ‘C:\Program Files\TextPad 4\TextPad.exe’)

Hotspots can be used for doing much more. You can explore the different ‘Category’ and ‘Commands’ associated with it, in the ‘Action’ tab, and add more interesting functionalities to your Menu.