CARMA has several settings that can be modified through
preferences. To access these settings, select from the file menu, Window > Preferences.
In the Preferences menu that opens, expand
the Team node, and select CARMA.
Each of the check boxes in this menu modify some setting in CARMA.
- Disable known unsupported actions
- Marking this check box will disable any actions a RAM reports
as unsupported. For example, the sample PDS RAM does not support the
Check out action. When you try to use this option, a message will
appear stating that the particular action is not supported and disable
the action from selection.
- Custom parameter search order
- Marking this check box will set the order of where to look for
values for custom parameters. When a custom action is run that requires
custom parameters, Rational® Developer
for System z® will search
through the metadata in an attempt to find values for the parameters.
You can adjust the order of this search by moving each metadata location
up or down in the list using the buttons to the right. User
Entered values are values previously entered by the user
on the same action but not necessarily on the same member. For example,
if User Entered was set at the highest level
in the Custom Parameter Search Order and Action
1 was called on Member 1 and then Action 1 was called on Member 2,
then the user entered values for custom parameters would be pre-filled
in for the user to update, change, or resubmit. A similar example
of this is if Action 1 was called on Member 1 and then Action 2 was
called on Member 2 and Action 2 requests a parameter requested by
Action 1, the values for this custom parameter will not be pre-filled
for the user.
- Property Values are metadata, or member
info, with the same name as the parameter. For each CARMA member,
there is a list of property values associated with the member. If
a custom action requests a parameter with the same name as a key in
the property value list, then it will automatically fill the custom
parameter with the value associated with the key.
- Finally, the Server Specified Defaults are
the default values set up for the parameter in the VSAM configuration
files. These defaults are created when a custom parameter is created
for use with a particular custom action on some RAM.
- Always prompt for parameter values
- Marking this check box will show the prompt to enter parameter
values, even if the values have been stored in the metadata from a
previous call. When the check box is cleared, the first time a user
calls an action, the prompt to enter parameter values is shown, but
for any subsequent call on the action, the previously entered values
are sent without prompting the user for updates.
- Prompt for confirmation when deleting
- Marking this check box will ensure that a prompt is shown to the
user verifying that the delete was intentional. When the check box
is cleared, the prompt to verify with the user will not be displayed
- Prompt for confirmation when moving project association to RAM
- Marking this check box will ensure that a prompt is shown to the
user when he or she does something that would cause a local or z/OS® project to be associated with
multiple repository instances. When this happens, the association
changes from the original repository instance to the RAM itself. The
prompt notifies the user that the association is changing to the RAM
and gives the user the option to cancel the action and the change
in association. Users may want to be notified of this association
change as CARMA actions can be called only against what a particular
member or container is associated to, and behaviour may vary between
a repository instance and a RAM. Clearing the check box turns off
this prompting.
- Check for host modifications before replacing the member
- Marking this check box will prompt the user if changes have occurred
in the CARMA member before checking it in. For example, if a CARMA
member as part of a project that is associated with a repository instance
with modifications, and a user attempts to check in the member but
modifications have already been made to the CARMA member and checked
into the repository before this modification has been, a notification
will be shown to the user informing them that the original version
of the CARMA member he or she checked out is not the most up to date
and that by checking in the changes he or she made, the already checked
in changes may be lost.
- Refresh affects only direct children
- Marking this check box only allows the refresh of CARMA containers
and members to go one level deep. Clearing this check box allows for
a recursive refresh of the CARMA containers and members. However,
a recursive refresh is generally expensive and time consuming, so
generally keeping the check box marked is a good thing.
- Show the resource display metadata in the CARMA view
- Marking this check box sets CARMA to display metadata, such as
file extensions, in the CARMA view. The metadata has to be downloaded
from the RAM in order for it to be displayed which is what the following
two settings address. Clearing this check box will keep the metadata
from downloading from the host and as a result no file extensions
will be shown on CARMA members.
- Retrieve the resource display metadata automatically
- Marking this check box sets CARMA to automatically download the
metadata from the RAM for each CARMA member and the file extensions
will show up automatically. For metadata to show up when this check
box is cleared, the user must select the CARMA member at least once
at which time the particular metadata is downloaded from the RAM.
- Retrieve resource display metadata on containers
- This setting is not available to mark if the check box, Retrieve
the resource display metadata automatically is not selected.
Marking this check box sets the metadata downloaded from the RAM to
be downloaded from the containers rather than each individual CARMA
member. This ends up grabbing a smaller amount of metadata from the
host, and as a result all CARMA members contain the same file extension
and metadata associated with CARMA. The exception to this is when
a specific CARMA member has a different extension set and the metadata
for that member is retrieved separately, such as when a user views
the member's properties.