Screen colors and attributes are defined in a color mapping file.
A sample color mapping file named cicscolsamp.ini is supplied in the <install_path>/samples/configuration subdirectory. It is recommended that you create your own customized mapping file.
To create your own customized mapping file on Windows, copy <install_path>\samples\configuration\cicskeysamp.ini to <product_data_path>\cicskey.ini.
SET CICSCOL=C:\custom\mycols.ini
and
on UNIX and Linux: export CICSCOL=/var/cicscli/mycols.ini
See your Windows operating system documentation for other ways of setting this environment variable.
On UNIX and Linux if you do not specify otherwise, a file name of cicscol.ini in the <install_path>⁄bin subdirectory is assumed.
On Windows if you do not specify the -c option or the CICSCOL variable and do not create <product_data_path>\cicscol.ini, the keyboard mapping is defined by the default file <install_path>\bin\cicscol.ini.
A color mapping file provides alternative representations in hardware environments where it is not possible exactly to replicate 3270 screen attributes, for example, blinking or underscore. The color mapping file therefore defines how 3270 screen attributes are emulated on the client hardware. If the color mapping file specifies a mapping for an attribute, this mapping is used even if the hardware upon which CICS® Transaction Gateway is running actually supports the screen attribute.
The color mapping file defines the default colors to use when there is no color information contained within the 3270 data stream, as well as allowing the remapping of colors. By default, fields in data streams that do not contain any extended attributes are displayed in four colors based on the field intensity and protection attributes. These four colors are defined by the following bind settings in the color mapping file:
By default, fields in data streams that contain extended attributes are displayed in only two colors based on the field intensity attribute. These two colors are defined by the default and default_highlight bind settings in the color mapping file. You can use the cicsterm -e option to specify that the four default colors are used even when the 3270 data stream contains extended attributes.
If an application requests a 3270 field to be displayed with, for example, underscore, and no emulation setting has been specified, and the hardware cannot display underscore, the field is displayed without any highlighting at all.
You can change the color mapping file at any time, although changes do not take effect until the next time the terminal emulator is started.