CL Prompt — Prompt IBM i CL Commands (PREVIEW)

A professional CL (Control Language) prompter for VS Code that brings the familiar IBM i F4 CL prompter experience to your modern development environment. Works seamlessly with the vscode-for-ibmi extension (Code4i/Code4IBMi). CURRENTLY in PREVIEW so keep your Cmd+Z (or Ctrl+Z on Windows) UNDO key ready.

Getting Started

To prompt a CL command:

1. Open a CLP, CLLE, CMD, or BND source member.
2. Place your cursor on the line with the command you want to prompt.
3. Press F4 or use the context menu right-click -> "CL Prompter" to prompt.
4. Fill in the parameters in the prompter.
5. Press Enter to update your code or F3/Cancel to cancel (the ESC key also cancels).

Features

Enhanced User Experience

• Visual Focus Indicator — Clear arrow (▶) indicator shows which input field currently has focus, making it easy to navigate through complex command parameters
• Tab Navigation — Press TAB to move seamlessly between input fields, just like traditional 5250 prompting
• Comment Preservation — Trailing comments on your CL commands are automatically preserved and properly formatted when you submit the prompter
• F3=Cancel — Press F3 during prompting to cancel and return to your code without changes
• Enter=Apply - Press Enter during a prompter to apply the changes to the CL source

Intelligent Formatting

• ELEM Parameter Handling — Complex ELEM parameters (like LOG, EXTRA, etc.) stay together on a single line when possible for better readability
• Multi-line Comment Support — Long comments are automatically wrapped and properly indented on continuation lines
• Qualified Name Formatting — Properly handles qualified objects like LIB/OBJECT throughout the prompter

Customization & Configuration

• Theme-Aware Colors — Keyword and value colors automatically adapt to your VS Code theme (light/dark/high-contrast) or use your custom colors
• Configurable Formatting — Control label position, command position, keyword position, continuation position, and right margin
• Case Conversion — Choose between uppercase, lowercase, or no case conversion for your CL code
• Custom Color Settings — Set your preferred colors for keywords and values with optional automatic theme adjustment

Diagnostic Tools (for troubleshooting)

• Save Command XML — Optionally save the IBM i command definition XML to a file for analysis
• Save Prompter HTML — Optionally save the generated prompter HTML for diagnostic purposes when reporting issues

Links

• Source Code
• Issues

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! To contribute:

1. Fork this repository and clone it locally.
2. Create a new branch for your feature or bugfix.
3. Make your changes, then commit and push to your branch.
4. Open a pull request describing your changes.

For bug reports or feature requests, please open an issue in the Issues page.

• If you are unsure or have questions, feel free to start a discussion or reach out via issues.

Thanks for your interest in improving CL Prompter!

-Bob