Overview

IBM Z® Open Editor v4 and later features enterprise-level advanced capabilities that support use cases that go beyond programming and basic access to z/OS resources. These capabilities are available through IBM commercial zDevOps solutions, such as IBM Developer for z/OS Enterprise Edition (IDzEE). While the core Z Open Editor experience continues to provide free full language support for COBOL, PL/I, REXX, HLASM, JCL, and integrations with Zowe™ Explorer, these advanced capabilities require the purchase of additional components and licenses to activate.

You can purchase the required licenses through IBM Developer for z/OS Enterprise Edition, IBM Developer for z/OS Select, or IBM Application Delivery Foundation for z/OS.

All new users of Z Open Editor receive a 90-day evaluation trial for all the advanced capabilities. After the trial period, these capabilities require activation through either an RSE API server connection or imported activation kits, as described in Activating advanced capabilities. Only the following capabilities documented in this section require such a license.

Capability categories

Advanced capabilities are categorized based on their setup requirements:

• Client-only capabilities: Run entirely within the VS Code client, with no external dependencies.
• Host component capabilities: Require a Zowe connection profile (z/OSMF or RSE API server) for full functionality.

Capabilities available with IBM® Developer for z/OS® Select

The following capabilities are available with IBM® Developer for z/OS® Select as well as IBM Developer for z/OS Enterprise Edition (IDzEE), IBM Application Delivery Foundation for z/OS (ADFz), and IBM Bob™ Premium Package for Z (PPZ).

1. Remote Connection Emulator: Open a 3270 emulator hosted on the RSE API server by right-clicking a Zowe Explorer RSE API profile. The emulator opens either in a VS Code panel or an external browser, depending on your preference.
2. z/OS Resources table: A feature-rich view that extends Zowe Explorer with a sortable table. Gain insights into your jobs, data sets, and UNIX files by listing, filtering, and sorting on many available properties.
3. Data Elements view: Use this view to display information about the data elements in a COBOL or PL/I program, including those from copybooks and include files, in a table that can be sorted and filtered.
4. Program Control Flow Browser: Use this view to display the control flow of a COBOL or PL/I program in an interactive graph.
5. Data Flow Browser for COBOL: Display the data flow of a data element in a COBOL program using an interactive graph. You can use this feature to examine how a data element is populated, modified, or written elsewhere.
6. Preprocessor support for COBOL and PL/I: Run a preprocessor either on a local workstation or remotely on z/OS, driven by a new ZAPP profile type. Continue to edit with full syntax checks except for the preprocessor statements, and automatically rerun the preprocessor each time you save. Compare the preprocessor-generated code with the original code side-by-side.
7. HLASM macros support: Use custom macro resolution in HLASM programs with references to macros in local files and remote data sets. The HLASM editor provides hovers, document links, go to definition, and code completion for macros. This capability supports one or more macro declarations per include file by pre-scanning macro files, provided they are found in local ZAPP property groups. Remote macros can only be found when using an RSE API connection as your default Zowe Explorer profile.
8. Language Detection for data set members: Use Zowe Explorer with RSE API profiles to detect the programming language of a data set member opened in the editor.
9. Line Hex Editor: View and edit the raw hexadecimal representation of a sequential data set or PDS member. Use this capability to work with binary and EBCDIC-encoded content at the byte level without leaving VS Code.

Client-side and host-enabled capabilities

The following table shows the client-side and host-enabled capabilities available with these offerings.

Note: Preprocessor support for COBOL and PL/I can run entirely in the VS Code client without a z/OS connection, or remotely on z/OS when a Zowe profile is available.

Additional capabilities available in other products

The following capabilities are available with with IBM Developer for z/OS Enterprise Edition (IDzEE), IBM Application Delivery Foundation for z/OS (ADFz), and IBM Bob Premium Package for Z (PPZ).

1. Linting with IBM ZCodeScan: Helps developers scan COBOL and PL/I program files for best practice violations and security vulnerabilities, and it presents the results in a linter-like format.
2. Dependency Based user build and advanced error reporting: Run a build of COBOL, PL/I, HLASM programs on a remote z/OS system through a right-click in Z Open Editor. Review informational, warning, or error messages issued by the compiler directly in the VS Code Problems view. Z Open Editor automatically downloads the build logs, parses them, and presents the messages in the Problems view with descriptions and error codes. Then navigate to warnings and errors in the code using a mouse, click in the Problems view to identify and resolve issues, and then rerun the build.
3. User build with customizable tasks: Create a flexible build pipeline by using individually configurable tasks in a userbuild profile defined in the zapp.yaml file. Each task can perform built-in actions, run a local script, or invoke a remote command on z/OS. Use the included GRUB scripts to synchronize only changed files with z/OS through Git instead of uploading all dependencies during every build. This approach supports any programming language and enables post-build activities, such as deployment or testing, directly from VS Code.
4. Agent Mode: Use Z Open Editor's MCP (Model Context Protocol) server within an Agent-based AI chat panel in VS Code. This setup provides the panel with context and data from your z/OS data sets, files, and jobs through Zowe APIs, along with Z Open Editor configuration files to assist in troubleshooting your environment.

Client-side and host-enabled capabilities

In addition to the previously listed capabilities, IBM Developer for z/OS Enterprise Edition, IBM Application Delivery Foundation for z/OS, and IBM Bob Premium Package for Z provide the following advanced capabilities.

The following capabilities require a Zowe connection profile and additional dependencies.