For a lot of years (app. 20) I have used a simple ISPF EDIT trick which I thought that most programmers knew. Recently I realised that this might not be the case. Then I finally decided to write this tip.

First of all I decided to find out whether the tip is documented by IBM or not. It is included in the general description about line commands in the ISPF EDIT and EDIT macros manual. The contents tells you how to turn any line command into a primary command by placing a : (colon) in front of the line command and before pressing Enter you must remember to move the cursor down to the line the line command is intended for.

This may not sound especially user friendly, but if you assign for instance the value :I to a function key using the KEYS command then you have a function key you can use to insert a new line after the line on which the cursor is located. Try it if you have not tried it before. Quite fancy I think. I use the trick in connection with the line command TS because it anyway requires you to place the cursor in the position on the line where you want to split it. The only problem with this tip is that you will be extremely pleased about it, but it may be difficult to find enough available function keys.