Recently at a client site, I heard a monotonous and really quite annoying sound: tap,tap,tap,tap,tap,tap,tap,tap,TAP... tap,tap,tap,tap,tap,tap,tap,tap,TAP... tap,tap,tap,tap,tap,tap,tap,tap,TAP... tap,tap,tap,tap,tap,tap,tap,tap,TAP... coming from the adjoining Dilbert cubicle.

This prompted me to ask what he was doing. He reluctantly moaned that "I have to move all these spool files to another output queue and their are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them"

I looked quizzically until I realized he was in WRKSPLF on the green screen and was manually selecting each and every spool file with a 2 before paging down for the next screen, for as many screen as was needed, he then planned to change the output queue.

Wow!

Loads of time wasted doing a manual task when the tools to move the entire output queue are already right there in Windows but just didnt know about it.

So, to save my eardrums, I showed him how we could do it using IBM Navigator (iSeries Nav or i-Nav is its now known) in a few simple mouse clicks...

1 - Launch Navigator if your not already running it and click BASIC OPERATIONS

2 - Select PRINTER OUTPUT

3 - Choose SPLFS to move

Now its time to select the spool files (reports) that you want to remove. You cant use CTRL/A in my version of Iseries Navigator so I just select the first one and then...

SHIFT/CLICK the last one to select them all

4 - now RIGHT CLICK and select MOVE

Ta-da!

Yes it really is that quick and simple.

So the lesson today is to kick your brain out of green screen mode. Using IBM's tools will not only save you time but will reduce keyboard wear, lower the irritating-sound-in-the-office ratio and prevent you developing repetitive strain injury   ;)

/me manages to stop himself moaning about people writing RPG code using SEU....