You don't want an XEDIT PROFILE that makes it behave like ISPF; you want one which makes it better than ISPF!
When I first started using XEDIT in 1987, I created a set of macros for my team which simplified XEDIT in many ways, yet which still allowed the advanced user to customize their own settings. It coordinated the file position and the screen position, so when you pressed Enter in the file area that set the current line and column, and if you hadn't changed anything it switched the cursor to the command line. It also avoided scrolling unnecessarily for example if you found some text on the same page. If you pressed Enter on the command line without entering anything, the cursor would jump to the current line and column (which could have been updated by commands). If you edited the same file multiple times within a logon session, it resumed at the same place, preserving various other settings too. There were many other little features, for example if you typed a sequence number on the command line you would be positioned at that line. The Split/Join PF key processing was language sensitive, and it also recognized when it was being used in a comment box, leaving the delimiters alone and splitting to match the current text indent. I had a statement comment PF key which was language sensitive, as well as a box comment PF key. I also like being able to scroll the screen easily to a specific line, so I had scrolling keys (PF10/PF11) which would scroll until the cursor line is bottom or top of the screen, and a "focus" PF key (PF9) which would move the current line to a standard position (1/3 of the way down). At my IBM site, we also had access to a large collection of VM tools, including for example a COMPARE macro (which found the next difference between two windows, compared using the zone of the current window), and tools to allow prefix copy and move commands between different edit windows. Within a short time, my enhanced XEDIT development environment became second nature to me, although I did need to reprogram my brain for the differing ways in which ISPF and XEDIT identify move and copy target lines. I rarely had to think about the process of editing, only the actual writing and coding. Occasionally over the years I found some useful enhancement or improvement, but the base package of tools hardly changed since I created it. Jonathan Scott -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Assembler List <ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> On Behalf Of Phil Smith III Sent: 08 September 2025 17:06 To: ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: HLASM and VM (was RE: Using (0) to suppress alignment checks in HLASM) ... There have been abortive discussions at times of a PROFILE for XEDIT that would make it behave like ISPF, but there are too many subtleties and I've never found the right ISPF maven--someone with the deep knowledge AND the interest/time. My XEDIT knowledge is there; ISPF, not so much.
