View, screen, configuration, and Help libraries

The information in this topic applies to MainView products that operate in windows mode only.

This topic contains the following information:

Note

During installation, you select whether to use runtime libraries or SMP/E libraries. If you use runtime libraries, your customized library names will start with BMC. If you use SMP/E libraries, your customized library names will start with BB, UBB, or TOSZ. A few library names start with IBB or SBB for runtime or SMP/E libraries.

Throughout the documentation, the BB*, UBB*, and TOSZ* data set names are used even if the actual library names start with BMC*.

Content of libraries

The libraries contain the following types of information:

Views
The SMP target view library is allocated in the CAS and PAS startup procedure. This library contains a uniquely named set of views for each product. View tables allow multiple products to have the same view names. For example, MainView for z/OS has one version of the VIEWS view, while CMF MONITOR has a completely different version of VIEWS; they are kept separated in the library by being stored in tables with unique names.
Screen definitions
A set of screen definitions is allocated by the MainView CLIST.
Configuration
Configuration definitions are used by MainView Explorer.
Help text
A set of members that contains online Help text for products that provide views.

Types of libraries

The following types of libraries are available:

Site libraries

The following site libraries are created for you during installation:

View library, allocated as hlq.SBBVDEF
Screen definition library, allocated as hlq.SBBSDEF
Configuration library, allocated as hlq.SBBCDEF

The first S in SBBVDEF, SBBSDEF, and SBBCDEF represents site.

When the MainView CLIST is used to access the MainView Selection Menu, these data sets are allocated to the user address space (UAS) by using the following DD names: BBVDEF, BBSDEF, and BBCDEF.

Warning

A system administrator should retain sole authority for adding and deleting views, screen definitions, configuration, or Help text in site libraries. Granting write authority to more than one user can result in overwriting valuable data. Users who want to contribute to a site library should contact the system administrator.

If you have an external security system (such as IBM RACF, or Computer Associates CA ACF2 or CA Top Secret), you can use it to restrict change authority to the system administrator's user ID.

User libraries

User libraries contain customized views, screen definitions, configurations, or Help text that are available to an individual user only.

If a user does not have access to a user library, any changes that the user makes are stored in the site library by default (unless the system administrator has prevented write access to the site library). A user library should be created for each user at your site.

Use the following procedure to create a user library:

Create a standard partitioned data set for a user view, screen definition, configuration, and Help text library.
Observe the following guidelines:
- Make the data set a fixed block data set with LRECL=80.
- Use the following naming convention:
  uprefix.userid.[BBVDEF | BBSDEF | BBCDEF | BBHELP]
  The variables are as follows:
  - uprefix is a user’s TSO prefix. (You can use the UPREFIX parameter in the MainView CLIST to specify any prefix that you want. This parameter is useful for users who have more than one TSO ID and want to use the same user BBxDEF data set with all of their IDs.)
  - userid is a user’s TSO ID.
  - BBVDEF is a view library.
  - BBSDEF is a screen definition library.
  - BBCDEF is a configuration library used by MainView Explorer.
  - BBHELP is a Help text library.
Change the user's allocations to include user and site data sets.
Ensure that the user library is searched before the site library.
Note

If the MainView CLIST is used to access the MainView Selection Menu, the CLIST concatenates the view and screen libraries. The user Help text library must be added to the concatenation manually.

You can add as many data sets to the concatenation as your site allows. For example, you might want to create libraries that only people in certain departments can access. Then, all people in a given department would name the same data sets on their BBxDEF concatenation.

Shared libraries

User libraries that are allocated to a UAS are shared by all products that provide views.

Therefore, if you have more than one of these products installed on your system, use caution when saving views and screen definitions.

To avoid possible confusion, you should establish a naming convention at both the site and user levels (for example, Cxxxxxxx for CMF MONITOR views and Mxxxxxxx for MainView for z/OS views).

Example

Suppose you create a MainView for z/OS view called MYVIEW and save it in your user view library. You then access CMF MONITOR and create another view, also called MYVIEW. When you try to save the second MYVIEW, a message warns you that MYVIEW already exists because you created the MainView for z/OS MYVIEW previously. If you save the second version anyway, the first version of MYVIEW is overwritten.

Library concatenation

When views, screen definitions, or Help text are changed or created, they are saved in the following order by default:

User library (if one exists)
Site library (if one exists)

If neither library exists, an error message is displayed.

Note

The distributed view library cannot be overwritten because it is allocated to a PAS, not a UAS.

When views, screen definitions, or Help text are requested, the libraries are searched in the following order by default:

Your user library (if one exists)
Your site library (if one exists)
The distributed library (for views and Help text only)

Related topics

Product library customization summary

MainView product libraries