Paul Gilmartin wrote:
When I first encountered this behavior about 25 years ago, I deemed it
bizarre; akin to the editor's presuming that if my file contained no
instances of the character 'W' on initial entry, it was my intent never
to uuse a 'W', and that if I typed one, it should be translated to
something else. (But should it turn on a software NUM LOCK if the
file initially contains no alphabetics?)
Of course, at that time I was a very new convert to mixed case, and
particularly sensitive to any perceived attempt to draw me back into
the Darkness.
I developed a simple solution to this problem, still in practice. I
ensure that _every_ file I edit with ISPF contains at least one lower
case character, so ISPF never changes my CAPS setting, nor chatters
about it.
I also default all edit sessions to CAPS OFF. Though, I prefer the use
of an initial edit macro over placing gratuitous lowercase data in the
member. (And, recent releases of ISPF have made automatic issuance of
initial edit macros easier than ever.)
In the past, I was bitten many times by ISPF forcing CAPS ON just
because there wasn't any lowercase data in the member. It's dismaying
when, after you type in several lines of (what should be) mixed case
data, ISPF capitalizes it. (No PC editor would do this!) And, recovering
from this mistake is brutal.
If you want CAPS ON behavior but you're really in CAPS OFF mode, the
easy fix is just to use the 'UC' (or 'UCC') line command(s) to fix the
data. There's no such easy fix for the opposite case. You have to
*retype* everything! PITA!
It sounds like many people aren't satisfied with ISPF's current
automatic CAPS status switching. Some people want to keep CAPS ON.
Others want to keep CAPS OFF. ISPF does neither. After over 25 years,
perhaps it's time IBM revisits this issue...
--
Edward E Jaffe
Phoenix Software International, Inc
5200 W Century Blvd, Suite 800
Los Angeles, CA 90045
310-338-0400 x318
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.phoenixsoftware.com/
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