Modify/Compile Envision processes in the terminal

If you have access to Desktop UI's terminal, or connection to the unidata application layer, you can directly modify and compile envision processes. Altho this is not a recommended practice, it can come in handy when you need to put out fire quickly.

In the terminal, open the file you want to edit with command:

:AE ST.SUBROUTINES C70.S.MY.SUBROUTINE

You need to determine the location of the process you're trying to edit. If it's a FA subroutine, then then instead of ST.SUBROUTINES, use FA.SUBROUTINES.

You can search for the text using "/Text to search". After you find the line, to can go to that line by just typing in the line number. You can then replace the text with "C/"Text to be replaced"/"Text to replace with". After you are done editing, use the command "FIB" to File and Batch, which also compiles the process. Boom, you're done!

You can find more about AE editor here Unidata Command Refs

Using ESEARCH to find hidden process references

Colleague Studio is a very user friendly tool that can do many things with simple mouse clicks. However, it's not perfect, and sometimes it does not do what it says it does 100% to completion. Let's take "Show Reference" for example. Colleague Studio will show you a partial list of processes that reference a particular process. If you still have access to the terminal in Desktop UI, using ESEARCH command can help in these kinds of research.

We will look at one of the Ellucian's delivered subroutine, S.CHECK.IF.WITHDRAWN, for this example. When checking for references in Colleague Studio, the list looks like this:

Now that I know this subroutine is mainly called in ST, I can go to the terminal and check for the complete list.

The above screen shows the usage of ESEARCH. You specify the folder/category of processes you want to search for. The above searches for UI/Webadvisor forms in ST. After the search, the result is saved in a savedlist named DTP. When you open DTP up, either in the terminal or in UI using SLED, you will see the more complete list of UI/Webadvisor forms that reference S.CHECK.IF.WITHDRAWN in ST.

Looking at the result, we can see more processes that reference S.CHECK.IF.WITHDRAWN than what Colleague Studio provides. I have found that Colleague doesn't not maintain references to custom processes very well, so ESEARCH is a good way to double-check. You can search for processes in corresponding applications:

appl.SUBROUTINES -> appl subroutines

appl.SOUCE -> appl screens

All of this requires you to have access to the terminal, of course. You can do a similar search using the window explorer on the Colleague file server, but that takes way longer for me.

Killing Unidata session (softly with STOPUDT)

A while back when Colleague UI was first introduced, users started to X'ing out of the web-browser to close the session instead of using the logout button. That resulted in many runaways processes that used up the small license pool we had. I learned to kill those sessions through the terminal as following:

Open Colleague Desktop UI terminal:

LISTUSER: this lists all active sessions

LISTUSER | find "username": this finds a particular user's active sessions with "username"

Kill the session by:

STOPUDT usrnbr(user number): kill the session using the user's number, it's the number on the second column after using LISTUSER

* Note: insert a bang ("!") in front of LISTUSER or STOPUDT to use admin right if the commands don't work

You can use LISTUSER to check to see if your process is still running or the screen has frozen. Many times I waited for a process for so long just to find out the session was disconnected.

Missing Physical File Name for the Logical File "INSTITUTIONS"

This error seems to be persistent in our Dev environment and never went away. There was not enough time to spend research to completely solve it. The error was created as follow:

Another file, let's say CUSTOM.FILE, was checked out and modified in ST. For unknown reasons, INSTITUTIONS, which is in CORE, took CUSTOM.FILE's FIELD.FIELDS and made it its own (copied its data). Therefore, a duplication of INSTITUTIONS record exists in ST File Specs. Generating any process that uses fields from INSTITUTIONS will result in the above mentioned error.

I took the following steps to solve the problem. First, delete the duplicated INSTITUTION file.

DELETE FILE_SPECS
WHERE LOGICAL_FILE_NAME = 'INSTITUTIONS~ST'

Second, delete the I_INSTITUTIONS in ST.SOURCE. This will make the error go away.

How to search for text/process/data element using ESEARCH

If you have access to Colleague terminal (through UI desktop, if you still have it), using ESEARCH can give you more accurate and complete results than the function "Find Reference" in Colleague Studio.

After you're in terminal, use this syntax to look for references to subroutine S.MY.TEST.SUB.

ESEARCH ST.SUBROUTINES  <enter>
>>>>S.MY.TEST.SUB  <enter>

SAVE.LIST SOME.SAVEDLIST <enter>

ELE SAVEDLISTS SOME.SAVEDLIST000 <enter> (note the three 0s were added)

P <enter> (P to browse the file, Q to quit)


ESEARCH is fairly fast. The only limitation is has is that you need to go in different modules such as ST.SUBROUTINES or CORE.SUBROUTINES or ST.SOURCE to search for them. Colleague Studio maintains pretty good references, but sometimes it misses customized processes.

Commonly used keyboard shortcuts for Desktop UI2.3

( alternative keystroke combinations separated by | ) 

Move to the next field Tab

Move to the previous field Shift+Tab

Move forward one row Down Arrow

Move back one row Up Arrow

Move forward one screen Page Up

Move backward one screen Page Down

Move to the beginning of the current field Home

Move to the end of the current field End

Move to the first row of a window Ctrl+Home

Move to the last row of a window Ctrl+End

Field insert Ctrl+I | Insert | F3

Field delete Ctrl+D | Alt+F, F | Alt+E, D | F4

Open the File menu Alt+F

Cancel Alt+F, C | Shift+F8

Save (Update) Alt+F, S | F10

Close (Finish) Alt+F, L | F9

Detail Alt+F, D | F2

Direct Access Alt+F, A | F8

Record Delete Alt+F, R | Shift+F10

Exit Alt+F, X | Shift+F9

Open the Edit menu Alt+E

Open the Apps menu Alt+A

Open the Help menu Alt+H

Field Help Alt+H, F | F1

Process Help Alt+H, P | Shift+F1

Keyboard Shortcut Help Alt+H, U | Shift+F2

Pull down the Favorites menu Alt+V

Pull down the Options menu Alt+O