IBM Z® Open Editor

New Content and Blog Posts

Welcome to the IBM Z® Open Editor Team Blog. Bookmark this page as we update it regularly with new content such as blog posts, articles, and videos.

IBM Z Open Editor and IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI v5.1.0 released

December 10th, 2024

With the availability of version 5.1.0 of Z Open Editor we are completing our transition to Zowe v3 by fully adopting the virtual file system introduced with Zowe Explorer v3. When you now open a program that has copybooks or include files, and those files are fetched from MVS via a ZAPP property group, we use the same mechanism as Zowe Explorer to store them as the exact same virtual resource. It will not matter now if the file was opened directly via Zowe Explorer's Date Set View, or Z Open Editor's copybooks resolution and a ctrl/cmd-click on the underlined file reference, or via our advanced z/OS Resource table: you will see the same virtual file resource name in the VS Code editor tab. Unifying the file resources also enabled the ability to edit these copybooks and save changes back to MVS. By default such files will be opened as ready-only to avoid confusion introducing this feature and accidental code changes, but with the new user setting "zopeneditor.zowe": { "readonlyRemoteIncludeFiles": "<true-or-false>"} you can enable that these files are editable and can be written back to MVS. While we were working on these new features we also revisited the "zopeneditor.zowe": { "listBeforeDownload": "<true-or-false>"} setting and refined the checks we are performing for the existence of a data set member before trying to download it, because 404 errors are not handled well by z/OSMF.

This release also adds a key feature to our advanced PL/I preprocessor to support developers using PL/I Macros in their code. We are providing a new REXX program sample that our preprocessor feature can execute on z/OS to use the PL/I compiler to expand the macros and send the results back to our PL/I language server. PL/I developer can use this feature to eliminate the syntax errors they saw in the past when editing code with macros as our parser does not yet have support for these statements. The preprocessor will use the expanded source code to show how macros were expanded in rich hovers inside the program editor as well as a side-by-side view. You can continue editing your program without syntax errors and regenerate the expanded macro representation and refresh the hovers on save. We added an article about our preprocessor support to our Team Blog section under COBOL and PL/I preprocessor support by IBM Z® Open Editor.

For the IBM RSE API Plugin for Zowe CLI we added several exciting new commands and options. One focus area was new cross-LPAR commands and new parameters for paging results such as for long list of data set members.

This release also marks the start of a new generation of Cloud-based editing support for our platform. We retired our OpenShift Dev Spaces clone Wazi for Dev Spaces in favor of supporting Red Hat's OpenShift Dev Spaces directly. This will allow users to immediately be on the latest version of OpenShift and Dev Spaces and use the same platform as their distributed development counterparts facilitating breaking down solos and the creation of hybrid application development teams that maintain container-based and mainframe-based solution together. Find an introduction and all new help content in Overview to using Cloud and Browser-based platforms.

As always see the complete list of changes and fixes in our release here.

IBM Z Open Editor and IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI v5.0.0 with Zowe v3 support released

October 18th, 2024

Version 5 of Z Open Editor and the RSE API Plugin for Zowe CLI are now available on the VS Code Marketplace, Open-VSX, npmjs.com, Mainframe Downloadsopen in new window. The most important update is the switch to Zowe v3, which means Zowe Explorer 3.0.2 and Zowe CLI 8.x. These two, or newer versions, are now required as the previous versions 2.x of Zowe Explorer and CLI 7.x will not work with this 5.0.0 release.

The other two breaking changes that triggered a major version number update for this release are

  • VS Code 1.91 or newer is now required as we switched to the latest language server APIs in VS Code to utilize features that were added to the protocol. We will talk about how we are going to use them in future updates.
  • Java 17 or newer is also required for these language server updates and this release nicely coincides with IBM Developer for z/OS 17 that has also switched to Java 17 as its runtime. If you are on an older version of Java, Z Open Editor will not activate and the Welcome page will inform you to upgrade.

This release is coordinated with our paid-for products IBM Application Delivery Foundation for z/OS 5.0.0 and IBM Developer for z/OS Enterprise Edition 17.0.0open in new window that include Z Open Editor with technical support and our Advanced Capabilities. The packaging of the VS Code components included in these products have been renamed from "IBM Wazi for VS Code" to "IBM Developer for z/OS on VS Code". These offerings also provide the IBM Z Open Debug extension, Dependency Based Build version 3, with its all-new zBuilder framework, and Wazi Deploy. Also note that soon there will be early versions of the IBM Fault Analyzer and File Manager VS Code extensionsopen in new window be added to the ADFz offering as well.

Other release highlights for 5.0.0 are

See the full list of changes here.

Early pre-release available

September 30th, 2023

On our GitHub page for Z Open Editoropen in new window we are now providing an alpha-level pre-release for Z Open Editor 5.0.0 that works with Zowe Explorer 3.0.0. It is not a feature-complete version of v5, not tested, and not documented. Use at your own risk to evaluate the Zowe v3 user experience and to report issues that still need fixing.

If you report a bug, please mention the build id 5.0.0-202409301253-d546c4f2 as we might publish more updates like these if we find and fix more issues.

Here are the still incomplete release notes for this version:

Breaking changes:

  • Java 17: We are now building our language server with Java 17, which now the minimum Java version required for Z Open Editor. The editor will not work with Java 11 anymore. We recommend IBM's Semeru Runtime or JDK. Distributions from Oracle and OpenJDK will also work.
  • VS Code v1.91 or newer: As part of the upgrade to Java 17 we are able to use newer versions of language server APIs provided by the Eclipse LSP4J project and Microsoft. As a result we also increase the required version for VS Code for our extension to v1.91 or newer.
  • Zowe v3: Zowe Explorer 3.0.0 or newer is now required. Z Open Editor v5 will now download and install Zowe Explorer v3. Zowe Explorer v2 will not work anymore. For IBM RSE API Plugin for Zowe CLI the requirement is now Zowe CLI v8.

New features and fixes:

  • Localization: Z Open Editor and Zowe Explorer are now available for the VS Code display languages French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish. This also includes syntax error messages provided by the COBOL, PL/I, JCL and REXX language servers. Download the respective language pack and switch.
  • Added user settings to enable/disable folding range support for JCL and COBOL.

IBM Z Open Editor and IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI v4.5.0 released

September 19th, 2023

For the September 2024 release we reached a major milestone for completing our z/OS Resource Table and summarized all the new capabilities in a new Blog post. Please, share it with all your users. In particular, we are completed our Search capabilities for the table by adding content search for PDS members as well as UNIX System Services files.

The second advanced feature that got significant enhancements is our preprocessor support, which we extended to also work with PL/I programs. Our samples repositoryopen in new window now provides preprocessor examples in Java and REXX for both target languages as well.

On the free features side we added a new experimental content menu action to expand a COBOL program embedding all the nested copybooks and substituting REPLACING values. The feature is not complete as does not yet cover conditional compilation, but we are looking forward to your feedback.

Finally, we added new commands and options to our RSE API Plugin for Zowe CLI, such as copying content between LPARs, new encoding conversion options, as well as performance tweaks.

See the full changelog here.

IBM Z Open Editor and IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI v4.4.0 released

August 12th, 2024

Our August 2024 release of Z Open Editor and RSE API Plugin focuses on incremental refinements and fixes. We added many improvements to our Advanced Capabilities such as the following:

  • z/OS Resources Tables, which now features content search and new filter options.
  • Our Preprocessor support, which now adds support for z/OSMF, a Cancel button, as well as many fixes and small refinements.
  • As another highlight, our HLASM editor has been extended to now support code completion for local macros showing you all the macros parameters allowing you to use the tab key to navigate from parameter to parameter to fill in values. For operations the code completion mechanism is now also utilized for syntax errors.

For our free content we fix language support issues for PL/I, HLASM, as well as our all new JCL language server. For COBOL we added a first implementation of a long requested feature: code folding. We also made improvements to our RSE API Plugin for Zowe CLI by adding a new command for UNIX System Services and finally providing an installation option for air gap, i.e. installing the plugin without access to the public internet.

As always see the full changelog here.

IBM Z Open Editor and IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI v4.3.0 released

June 18th, 2024

IBM Z Open Editor 4.3.0 is now available adding support for another language: Job Control Language (JCL). The new language server is a first increment that provides most frequently requested features such as an Outline view, real-time syntax checking, and code completion. We are planning to add more capabilities in the future and look forward to your feedback. See this Blog post for an overview.

In addition to this free new language feature, we are also adding to the advanced capabilities for our IDzEE/ADFz audience by completing our preprocessor story with remote preprocessor execution. Run a custom preprocessor on z/OS, perhaps implemented in REXX, using a TSO command that reads a program file in a data set to produce a processed output file to be used by our COBOL language server for editing the program with the preprocessor statements. See our examples GitHub repositoryopen in new window for demo preprocessor implementations in Java and REXX to get started.

As always, we also improved our language support addressing changes for the latest PL/I v6.1 January 2024 compiler refresh, fixed bugs reported by the community, and added minor enhancements requested by customers, such as an improved support for editing strings with double-byte characters to avoid truncation issues. See the full list of changes here.

IBM Z Open Editor and IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI v4.2.0 released

May 16th, 2024

We released Z Open Editor and RSE API CLI plugin 4.2.0 with two more additions to our Advanced Features set:

  1. We added a brand new capability for HLASM developers to work with macro files showing hovers, document links, go to definition, and code completion for macros provided in local files.
  2. We also updated the z/OS Resource table with UNIX System Services support to provide you with the same capabilities to browse, filter, sort, open, download, upload, create, and copy your unix folders and files with the same user experience that we added in the 4.0.0 release for MVS and JES.

In addition to the usual bug fixes and refinements, we also added COBOL User Defined Functions support to Z Open Editor as well as enhancements and fixes for our watsonx Code Assistant for Z integration. Find the complete list of changes here.

IBM Z Open Editor and IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI v4.1.0 released

March 28th, 2024

Just two weeks after our major 4.0.0 update that focused on adding advanced features to Z Open Editor, we are releasing v4.1.0 with key updates for our watsonx Code Assistant for Z integration and the RSE API Plugin for Zowe CLI.

We added a graphical end-to-end walkthrough for how to get started and set up for using the Code Assistant's Transform features in Z Open Editor. We also added new ways of navigating from the generated Java code back to the COBOL sources using a VS Code CodeLens. Plus, we fixed various bugs and issues reported by our watsonx users.

For our Zowe CLI plugin we added powerful new commands for performing content searches on the UNIX System Services files. The CLI also introduces new command to a special RSE API for storing key-value pairs. RSE provides this mini key-value database feature that any system programmer or developer can use for their own purposes. You can store configuration information for private use in personal automation scripts or provide data to shared scripts across your team.

Also check this new Blog postopen in new window about how to create your own credentials managers for Zowe CLI. This approach was used in the Kubernetes-based manager that we created in the Zowe projectopen in new window that you can run in IBM Wazi for Dev Spaces utilizing OpenShift secrets.

IBM Z Open Editor and IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI v4.0.0 released

March 15th, 2024

We released a major update to Z Open Editor. In addition to featuring support for all the latest COBOL, PL/I, CICS, and HLASM languages refresh releases for z/OS 3.1, many RSE API enhancements, IBM Z Open Editor v4.0.0 is now the first release to introduce a set of all-new enterprise-level advanced capabilities. While the core Z Open Editor continues to provide full language support for COBOL, PL/I, REXX, and HLASM for free, this release adds capabilities for enterprise-level development use cases that go beyond program editing. They cover capabilities that you would typically only find in our commercial editing solutions such as IBM Developer for z/OS Enterprise Edition (IDzEE). With this release, we started to add these capabilities to Z Open Editor under the same licensing terms as IDzEE and a 60-day evaluation license. IDzEE customers can unlock the features by using RSE API or separately distributed activation kits. For more information, see the IBM Developer for z/OS Documentationopen in new window.

To emphasize, none of the other features that you were using in previous releases are impacted by the update. Previous features are still available for free and will still be maintained and enhanced as always. We are also still fully committed to supporting z/OSMF and RSE API for the free as well as advanced capabilities.

Only the following three new features require a license. Our goal is to provide more and more advanced features such as these to Z Open Editor in the future:

  1. Local preprocessor support for COBOL: run a preprocessor on your local workstation driven by a new ZAPP profile type and then continue editing with full syntax checking (except for the preprocessor statements) and automatically rerunning the preprocessor at save. Compare the preprocessor-generated code with your code side-by-side. Support for running the preprocessor on z/OS will be added in a future release.
  2. z/OS Resources table: an all-new feature rich view that extends Zowe Explorer with a sortable table. Gain insights into your jobs and data sets by listing, filtering, and sorting on many available properties.
  3. Advanced Dependency Based user build error reporting: User build logs are now automatically downloaded, parsed, and presented in the editor's Problems view with descriptions and error codes. Navigate to errors in your code with a mouse click in the Problems view to review and fix your issue and then rerun your build.

See the Advanced Capabilities section in our docs for a complete overview of these new capabilities.

As this is a major version release, we also upgraded some of our dependencies requiring newer versions of VS Code (1.81.0), Zowe CLI (7.21.3), and Zowe Explorer (2.14.1).

Go here for the full list of changes.

Also check out the completely redesigned IBM Z Open Debug v4.0.0open in new window VS Code extension. It is now using Zowe CLI profiles as well and provides an all-new Zowe Explorer inspired Debugger Profiles view for a seamless integration of the IBM z/OS Debugger into the Z Open Editor/Zowe Explorer-based user experience.

IBM Z Open Editor with IBM watsonx Code Assistant for Z v3.4.0 released

February 29th, 2024

We released IBM Z Open Editor v3.4.0. It introduces an all new user experience for generating Java classes in watsonx Code Assistant for Z. The COBOL-centric class generation preview of previous releases has been replaced with an all new Java-centric presentation. Users can now preview the Java classes to be generated in an expandable table view that outlines the variable and method member names next to their mapped COBOL names. They can click hyperlinks within the mapping view to navigate directly back to the COBOL source code files for comparison. We also redesigned the watsonx Code Assistant for Z tree view to show a breakdown of method members per Java class that can be generated by the assistant's AI component. These methods are based on COBOL section and paragraph names and become available after the initial Java class generation step has been completed. This will make it easy for developer to find the methods in the generated Java classes that they still need to generate using the AI-based transformation.

We also fixed eight bugs for the core Z Open Editor language support, which were reported by our community. Keep the feedback coming on GitHubopen in new window. See the detailed list of fixes here.

IBM Z Open Editor with IBM watsonx Code Assistant for Z v3.3.3 and IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI v3.3.3 released

December 15th, 2023

We released IBM Z Open Editor v3.3.3 with various fixes for the editor as well as the watsonx Code Assistant integration. Find the detailed list of changes here.

IBM Z Open Editor with IBM watsonx Code Assistant for Z and IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI v3.3.0 released

October 25th, 2023

Our next major release of Z Open Editor and the RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI is now available. We added many new features such as support for CICS 6.2 Beta and automatic generation of a default ZAPP file if none exists, improved syntax errors for HLASM, added support for SSH keys for user builds, and addressed many enhancement requests and bugs reported by our community. See the complete list of changes here.

This is also the first release that integrates client capabilities for the new IBM watsonx Code Assistant for Z product offering. IBM watsonx Code Assistant uses generative AI to accelerate code generation and increase developer productivity for application modernization. IBM watsonx Code Assistant for Z is now enabled in IBM Z Open Editor to drive the selective and incremental transformation of COBOL business services into Java code. It uses the inventory and analysis tools of IBM Application Discovery and Delivery Intelligence (ADDI) to support development teams in refactoring business services in COBOL, transforming COBOL code to Java code, and validating the resulting outcome. It is a separate product offering that you can purchase and then use with Z Open Editor. Learn more at https://www.ibm.com/products/watsonx-code-assistant-zosopen in new window.

IBM Z Open Editor v3.2.2 and IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI v3.2.2 released

September 15th, 2023

We released a fix pack for our Z Open Editor and the RSE API CLI addressing feedback, fixing bugs, and incrementally improving our language support, by fixing two more issues related to conditional compilation. Find the detailed list of fixes with links to Github issues here.

IBM Z Open Editor v3.2.1 and IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI v3.2.1 released

July 19th, 2023

We released a fix pack for our Z Open Editor and the RSE API CLI addressing feedback and one regression report we received for v3.2.0. We also incorporated various language fixes for CICS, PL/I, and HLASM. Find the detailed list of fixes with links to Github issues here.

IBM Z Open Editor v3.2.0, IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI v3.2.0, and Wazi for Dev Spaces v3.0.0 released

June 16th, 2023

We released version 3.2.0 of Z Open Editor and RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI and we shipped the Q2 release of IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stackopen in new window that features Wazi for Code 3.0.0 that comprises of Wazi for VS Code and Wazi for Dev Spaces. Wazi for Dev Spaces ships as a major release update with version 3.0.0, which is now based on the new Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces version 3.6. It is a zero-install experience of a full z/OS Enterprise Application development environment that just completely runs in the browser featuring our Z Open Editor, Z Open Debug, Wazi Analyze, Ansible for z/OS, Zowe Explorer and CLI as well as many more capabilities.

With this version we replaced the Eclipse Theia editor that ran our Z Open Editor with VS Code in the browser, which provides the same great user experience of VS Code on the desktop, such as multi-root workspaces and the code snippet gallery. It also now provides full compatibility to most of the extensions from the VS Code marketplace. You are now finally able to utilize great extensions such as GitLensopen in new window or the latest Red Hat Ansible language extensionopen in new window, which did not work with Theia. As always you can give our browser-based experience a try using a Red Hat Sandbox as well as other browser-based solutions such as GitHub Codespaces or GitPod. See our Getting Started page for details.

As we were preparing for Wazi for Dev Spaces 3.0.0, we did not have a May fix pack release, but we did not stop working on fixes for the issues reported by our community. As you can see from the large size of our detailed Changelog, we addressed 13 issues reported by our GitHub communityopen in new window as well as many more reported through other channels. We also added many new enhancements such as language updates for COBOL and PL/I:

We also added various new configuration options based on user feedback. For example, for each language to enable or disable the Problems view and syntax errors shown within the editor using zopeneditor.<language>.disableProblems while maintaining other language features. It will allow users to continue working in the program with some language features despite parsing issues. We also added user-defined variables to ZAPP files as well as various options to control how include files will be downloaded via Zowe from MVS for user to tweak performance and reliability.

IBM Z Open Editor v3.1.1 released

March 30th, 2023

We released version 3.1.1 of Z Open Editor with fixes for some regressions found in v3.1.0. See the list of fixes here.

IBM Z Open Editor and IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI v3.1.0 released

March 10th, 2023

We released version 3.1.0 of Z Open Editor and RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI. The main focus of this release were language improvements and fixes as well as scalability and performance.

For PL/I, we caught up with the October language refresh for v6.1open in new window. For COBOL, we worked through a long list of issues that you can see in the detailed Changelog here. We also added one more set of options to our experimental COBOL source code formatter that allows you to specify how TO and INTO clauses should be formatted and aligned.

We also tackled various performance issues that users reported when editing very large programs. In particular, issues around using wildcard/glob pattern expressions in the ZAPP file, which could lead to a lot of local directories and files being searched. Through caching we were able to improve load times significantly. On a test system with slow I/O, by editing a program that includes 1000 copybooks located in a large repository with many sub-directories searched using wildcards (e.g. **/COPYBOOK/**), we measured a performance gain from 8 minutes to 30 seconds for opening the program and loading the files. On a Mac with a fast SSD, it was just 4 seconds. We also added the same improvements that we made in v3.0.1 for loading remote include files from MVS in parallel for COBOL to the PL/I language server as well, which leads to a significant performance improvement when opening files with many include files as well as opening several programs at the same time.

We also added file watchers to ZAPP property groups that monitor local files for changes. Now if you change, add, or delete a local included file in any of our languages that are used by programs opened in the editor, the programs will be updated with the changes immediately on Mac while you type or after you save on Windows.

In addition to these changes, you can find in our Changelog many more fixes and refinements for user build, ZAPP, COBOL code formatter, Zowe Explorer's JES view with RSE API, and more.

Finally, you are now able to use Z Open Editor in Microsoft's GitHub Codespaces and GitPod with all our capabilities. You can even use it with limited capabilities as a web extension when using Visual Studio Code in a browser, such as vscode.dev or github.dev. We documented how you can try all these browser-based and cloud-based options for free on our Getting started page.

IBM Z Open Editor and IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI v3.0.1 released

January 18th, 2023

Version 3.0.1 is now available fixing several user-reported bugs. See the detailed list here.

IBM Z Open Editor v3.0.0, IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI v3.0.0, and Wazi for Dev Spaces v2.3.0 released

November 22nd, 2022

IBM Z Open Editor v3.0.0 is a major new release that provides many improvements for end users as well as many optimizations to make it run even better in the cloud on all supported platforms (s390x, x86).

Together with Zowe Explorer 2.4 we improved and simplified the setup of team configuration files in Wazi for Dev Spaces and made a lot of robustness improvements. We also updated user build with IBM Dependency Based Build adding more features for multi-root workspaces, scoping your builds and filtering the files to upload and download. We removed redundancies between user settings and ZAPP in favor of ZAPP files and simplified the data model for property groups that require a simple migration.

We completely refactored our language parsers and reduced the overall size of the extension by another 25% to now just 37.4MB (remember the times when we were way over a 100MB?), improving load times in Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces and Wazi for Dev Spaces even further. The language servers are up-to-date using on the parsers from IBM Developer for z/OS version 16 that are compiled with Java 11 requiring users to upgrade in this release to a Java 11 or newer runtime. With this update comes also a large number of language fixes and improvements for IBM's latest enterprise language versions and particular CICS 6.1. See our release notes for the complete list of fixes.

IBM Z Open Editor, IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI, and Wazi for Dev Spaces v2.2.0 released

September 20th, 2022

IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack v2022.3.1open in new window is released today and with it updated versions 2.2.0 of IBM Z Open Editor, IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI, and Wazi for Dev Spaces v2.2.0. Check out the Changelog for Z Open Editor and RSE API CLI with the details.

IBM Z Open Editor, IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI v2.1.1 released

August 4th, 2022

Version 2.1.1 is now available. This release fixed several IBM User Build issues which include adding support for COBOL nested copybooks, enabled user to enter Zowe CLI profile credentials in a popup dialog inside VS Code, fixed handling of file paths with spaces, and fixed various issues running User Build in multi-root workspaces. Check out the full Changelog here.

IBM Z Open Editor, IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI, and Wazi for Dev Spaces v2.1.0 released

June 14th, 2022

Version 2.1.0 is now available, which adds support for COBOL v6.4, PL/I v6.1, CICS v6.1, and HLASM for IBM z16 and z/OS 2.5. We also fixed many bugs, improved our support for Zowe 2, and implemented various community enhancement requests. See the detailed list here.

This release also adds an experimental COBOL code formatter that is consistent to formatting in IBM Developer for z/OS. We are very interested in feedback and ideas for improvementsopen in new window.

Zowe 2 support added with version 2.0.2

April 25th, 2022

IBM Z Open Editor and IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI version 2.0.2 are now available. This release adds now full support for Zowe 2.0 in particular Zowe Explorer 2, Zowe CLI 7, Zowe API Mediation Layer 2. You can continue using your Zowe CLI 6.x profiles for backwards compatibility, but you must update Zowe Explorer to version 2 to do so. Review our Getting Started with Zowe 2.0 section in the Documentation for details and instructions for how to migrate your 6.x profiles to the new 7.x format.

IBM Z Open Editor 2.0.0 released

March 15th, 2022

IBM Z Open Editor and IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI version 2.0.0 are now available. They have been released as a major version update to celebrate their availability in IBM Wazi Developer for Workspaces 2.0.0, which is now part of the new IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stackopen in new window offering. Together with the recently announced IBM Wazi as a Serviceopen in new window initiative, you can see how IBM Wazi is enabling the developer experience for Z to be more increasingly run from the Cloud - accelerating how organizations can provide flexible and modern development environments to their developers.

A key enhancement of the Z and Cloud Modernization Stack offering is that Z Open Editor now fully supports OpenShift on Linux on Z when running as part of IBM Wazi. This allows you to now access your entire development environment with a browser-based VS Code-like experience all on Z.

In addition to supporting the s390x platform, this release focused on quality updates addressing defects, performance improvements, feedback, and enhancement requests submitted by the Z Open Editor community on GitHubopen in new window. See our Changelog here for a full breakdown of all the issues addressed.

Note, that because Zowe 2.0 was delayed to late April 2022, Z Open Editor 2.0.0 and the RSE API CLI Plug-in still have to be updated to support it. This version still requires Zowe version 1.x. We plan to release a fully Zowe 2.0 supported update of the editor and CLI plugin with the Zowe 2.0 release.

IBM Z Open Editor 1.4.1 released

November 19th, 2021

IBM Z Open Editor and IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI 1.4.1 are now available. This release fixes several language support and User Build issues. Additionally, password prompts for invalid or empty credentials during remote copybook and include file resolving have been added to prevent accidental MVS user account lock-outs and allow the use of Zowe profiles without stored credentials. You can find a detailed view of the updates contained in this release in our Changelog.

IBM Z Open Editor 1.4.0 released

October 29th, 2021

IBM Z Open Editor and IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI 1.4.0 are now available. A key focus area of this release was performance. We reduced the size of the VS Code extension to half, which users will see in reduced start-up times and memory footprint. Find the details of the many other fixes and enhancements here.

IBM Z Open Editor 1.2.6 released

August 19th, 2021

IBM Z Open Editor and IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI 1.2.6 are now available. We fixed several defects and addressed minor enhancement requests from our community. Plus, we made sure everything still works with Zowe Explorer 1.18.0, which was going through API changes to prepare for its Conformance Criteriaopen in new window support. See the detailed Changelog here.

There is also a new Blog post from Scott Davis called "Wazi Developer – what is behind this name?open in new window" that offers a larger scope of the positioning of Z Open Editor in Wazi Developer.

IBM Z Open Editor 1.2.5 released

June 18th, 2021

IBM Z Open Editor, IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI, and Wazi Developer 1.2.5 are now available. In addition to various fixes and performance improvements detailed in our Changelog here, Wazi Developer for Workspaces is now based on Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces 2.8 and packages Zowe Explorer 1.15.1 as well as Zowe CLI 6.31.

IBM Z Open Editor 1.2.1 released

April 21st, 2021

We released fixes for IBM Z Open Editor and IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI (RSE CLI plug-in) with version 1.2.1. For the editor, you will find various fixes and improvements for REXX language support in 1.2.1. For the RSE CLI plug-in, we revised and cleaned up output, error and log messages, and implemented various enhancements for single sign-on with the Zowe API Mediation Layer (APIML). For an introduction to using our tools with the Zowe APIML, read this new blog postopen in new window by Joe Winchester, IBM's Zowe technical lead.

IBM Z Open Editor, IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI, and Wazi Developer v1.2.0 released

March 19th, 2021

We released v1.2.0 of our tools today. See this blog post for an overview to the main things we added, as well as our Z Open Editor Changelogopen in new window for the list of fixes.

There are also two new blog posts giving you an in-depth look at the all new REXX language support we added in this release as well as all the new enhancements for IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI.

IBM Db2 for z/OS Developer Extension v1.1.0 released

February 23rd, 2021

The latest release of IBM Db2 for z/OS Developer Extension is now available on the Visual Studio Code marketplaceopen in new window. In this release, the extension delivers the following key features:

  1. Full support on native SQL stored procedure (NSP). Developers can deploy the NSP with different options, debug the NSP (including nested NSP) and run the NSP.
  2. Run SQL from anywhere. Developers can highlight and run SQL DIRECTLY from other types of language source code files, like Cobol file, C file, Java file, JavaScript/Python files, and so on (you name it), so that they don’t need to copy/paste the statement to another .sql file or twist the SQLs to validate the result.
  3. More commit/rollback setting for SQL execution.

You can read more about these new features hereopen in new window.

IBM Z Open Editor and RSE CLI Plug-in release 1.1.2, and new blog of IBM User Build

December 9th, 2020

We released v1.1.2 of Z Open Editor and the RSE CLI plug-in adding some exciting new featuresopen in new window for High Level Assembler developers working with macros and international customers working with special characters in EBCDIC.

We also added a new post to our team blog giving you an introduction and overview to Z Open Editor's User Build capability: IBM Z® Open Editor makes building COBOL, PL/I, and HLASM applications easier with User Build.

IBM Z Open Editor and RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI 1.1.1 released

November 6th, 2020

We released v1.1.1 of Z Open Editor and the RSE API Plug-in to catch up with the latest v1.10.1 release of Zowe Explorer fully supporting now Zowe CLI Base Profilesopen in new window with RSE API JWT tokensopen in new window as well. Plus, we fixed a couple of bugsopen in new window reported by our communityopen in new window.

To get the full package go to our download site here: https://ibm.github.io/mainframe-downloads/downloads.html#waziopen in new window

In the coming weeks we will also be publishing more media content around Wazi Developer. We start today with a new blog post about configuring Wazi Developer for Workspaces in OpenShift with certificates.

IBM Wazi Developer for Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces 1.1 released

October 30th, 2020

IBM Z Open Editor is part of the overall IBM Wazi Developer for Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces 1.1open in new window offering now, which was released today. Wazi Developer is a packaging of various developer components for VS Code as well as Eclipse. If you are a Z Open Editor user you might particularly interested in the Z Debug extension for VS Code and the updated RSE API Zowe CLI Plug-in v1.1.0. We have a detailed Blog post here with all the new features we added to the RSE API CLI Plug-in.

Wazi Developer also contains solution components for developing from the Hybrid Cloud utilizing Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces 2.3 on OpenShift 4.3 with our Z Open Editor and Debug. Plus, the Wazi Sandbox component that provides a fully virtualized z/OS environment, which enables development and testing of z/OS applications on Red Hat OpenShift running on x86 hardware.

Go here for an overview with videos and blog post: https://www.ibm.com/products/wazi-developeropen in new window

The downloads of the client tools as well as links to the Cloud solution installation instructions are available on our new Mainframe Downloads siteopen in new window.

Also check the original announcement with more details for what is exactly included in this offering.

IBM Db2 for z/OS Developer Extension 0.5.0 released

October 27th, 2020

The latest release of IBM Db2 for z/OS Developer Extension is now available on the Visual Studio Code Marketplaceopen in new window.

Db2 Developer Extension 0.5.0 continues to simplify and modernize the experience of developing SQL applications for Db2 for z/OS by providing the ability to create Db2 connections, SQL execution support, syntax checking, code completion, and signature help.

You can read more about these new features hereopen in new window.

Z Open Editor 1.1.0 released

October 23rd, 2020

IBM Z Open Editor 1.1.0 was released to the VS Code Marketplaceopen in new window. This release fully integrates the IBM User Build extension and expands its capabilities to support building PL/I and HLASM applications as well. We are also adding new features to property groups such as language-specific scoping with compiler options that configure the editor, as well as a complete new representation of property groups called ZAPP files. We also finally added full support for the Zowe Secure Credentials Store Plug-inopen in new window for all Z Open Editor functions such as remote include file resolution or user build.

See the complete list of changes hereopen in new window.

Z Open Editor 1.0.3 released and new Eclipse Che trial

August 7th, 2020

IBM Z Open Editor 1.0.3 was released to the VS Code Marketplaceopen in new window fixing various defects, adding branch labels to the HLASM Outline view, as well as introducing custom include file extensions.

We also updated our Eclipse Che trial described in this blog post. Now you can use the free Red Hat trial accounts at https://che.openshift.ioopen in new window to run Eclipse Che. With just a few mouse-clicks you can now deploy Z Open Editor there. It is really simple (paste a URL, Go) as it loads everything from the Cloud. See the instructions and our Che Devfile here: https://github.com/IBM/zopeneditor-about/tree/main/cheopen in new window

New IBM VS Code extension for Db2 SQL available now

July 30th, 2020

The first release of IBM Db2 for z/OS Developer Extension is now available on the Visual Studio Code Marketplaceopen in new window. Db2 Developer Extension brings SQL language support to VS Code and to Eclipse Theia.

You can read more about this new extension hereopen in new window.

VS Code Marketplace update

June 30th, 2020

IBM Z Open Editor 1.0.2 was released to the VS Code Marketplaceopen in new window adding High Level Assembler support now to that version as well.

IBM Wazi in the News

June 24th, 2020

We released a small bug fix update for IBM Z Open Editor v0.5.2/1.0.1 today that addresses an issue with running our language servers with a Java newer than version 8. Now it works again with Java SDKs released since then, such as LTS 11, 14 etc.

Since the release of IBM Wazi for Red Hat® CodeReady Workspaces the overall solution and its components have been mentioned and featured throughout the Web in various publications:

(List updated on 6/28.)

Finally, our IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI v.1.0.0 has been approved as fully Zowe CLI conformant and is now featured in the Open Mainframe Project's Conformance Galleryopen in new window.

IBM Wazi for Red Hat® CodeReady Workspaces available now

June 19th, 2020

You can now try out IBM Wazi for Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces Development Client (IBM Wazi Development Client) for a productive in-cloud development experience. The technical preview for IBM Wazi Development Client can be found at the Mainframe DEV Center's Downloads pageopen in new window.

Read our new blog post Kubernetes-Native Integrated Z Developer Environment with IBM Wazi for Red Hat® CodeReady Workspaces Development Client for an overview to learn more about the features and components of IBM Wazi Development Client.

IBM Z Open Editor 0.5.0 and 1.0.0 released

June 12th, 2020

IBM Z Open Editor v0.5.0 is released to the VS Code Marketplace. See here for all the enhancements and fixes.

IBM Z Open Editor v1.0.0 adds a new IBM High Level Assembler language server. Unfortunately, by adding this capability our VS Code extension exceeds the maximum code size allowed for VS Code extensions on the Microsoft VS Code Marketplace. Until we reduce the file size you can get the v1.0.0 release only as a free download from IBMopen in new window.

IBM Z Open Editor v1.0.0 is also part of IBM Developer for z/OS Enterprise Editionopen in new window. Customers who purchase this edition will then be able to receive technical support for Z Open Editor.

To learn more about the new High Level Assembler language server see our Blog post:

IBM Wazi for Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces announcement

May 5th, 2020

We announced today IBM Wazi for Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces in which the Z Open Editor will play a critical part. See the following resources:

New Z Open Editor release and public beta of IBM RSE API

March 26th, 2020

We released IBM Z Open Editor v0.4.7open in new window with Beta support for IBM Remote System Explorer API and the new IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLIopen in new window.

See our new Blog post Interacting with z/OS using IBM RSE API Plug-in for Zowe CLI for an overview as well as links to demo videos.

New article about Zowe and Z Open Editor

March 16th, 2020

Updated Code Snippet library in IBM Z® Open Editor v0.4.3

December 23rd, 2019

We released v0.4.3 to the marketplaceopen in new window with an all new set of code snippets. To read more about it see our latest blog post:

Updated Che devfile to use IBM Z® Open Editor v0.4.3 and Zowe Explorer 1.0.1

December 23rd, 2019

If you follow the instructions in our Using IBM Z® Open Editor in Eclipse Che blog post for creating a new Che Workpspace using our devfileopen in new window, you now get the latest releases of the editor (v0.4.3) the Zowe Explorer (v1.0.1).

DevOps.com article featuring IBM Z® Open Editor's LSP capabilities

December 18th, 2019

Bob Reselman published a great article about the Language Server Protocolopen in new window and uses Z Open Editor as an example.

Using IBM Z® Open Editor on the Web

December 4th, 2019

We added two new articles describing how you can use the IBM Z Open Editor VS Code extension outside of VS Code on Web running in a browser. We show you how to do it with two very popular frameworks:

Z DevOps Talks podcast

December 3rd, 2019

Rosalind Radcliffe talksopen in new window about our editor, bring-your-own-IDE, DevOps, and future trends.

IBM Systems Magazine Article

September 26th, 2019

Sanjay Chandru published an article about IBM Z Open Editoropen in new window and how it fits in perfectly with DevOps for IBM Z.

IBM Z® Open Editor Release Announcement

September 19th, 2019

Read the official announcementopen in new window for the IBM Z Open Editor's first release.

Last Updated:
Contributors: Peter Haumer, Peter Haumer, PETER HAUMER, kmaselli, Lauren Li, Chun Hong Zheng, Lauren Li, Shi Kun Li, Ankit Kumar, Billie, Billie Simmons, KRISTINA MAYO, Lauren K Li, Min Huang, Prasang-A-Prajapati, shikunli