Over the recent months, we have been working relentlessly to improve the debugging experience, and today we are happy to release new features that will boost your debugging experience with IBM® Z Open Debug. 

If you aren't yet familiar with what's IBM® Z Open Debug, it is a Visual Studio Code extension that brings COBOL and PL/I applications debugging support to Wazi workspaces. It provides developers a modern debugging experience for IBM® Z Enterprise Languages. It comes with the IBM® Z Open Debug Profiles view extension to manage your debug profiles.

HLASM support is now available in IBM® Z Open Debug!

 Z Open Debug now provides capabilities to debug HLASM applications in Wazi workspaces.

• z/OS Debugger loads debug data for the application and allow debugging at the HLASM level instead of the disassembly level.
• Also, supports setting the default location used to load appropriate debug data for the application.
  
  

Excited to try the Z Open Debug with HLASM support? Check out more about the features in IBM® Z Open Editor. A list of z/OS Debugger commands for HLASM can be found here.
​

Improved accessibility - Now supports VS Code color themes

IBM® firmly believes that web and software experiences should be accessible for everyone. IBM® Z Open Debug Profiles view web interface is created using Carbon - IBM’s official design system. 

There are several out-of-the-box color themes in VS Code and it disappointed us that the profiles view supports none. 

But hey, NOT ANYMORE! The profiles view now inherits the selected VS Code color theme.

Quick navigation to settings

The UI now provides quick access to the Z Open Debug settings.
Click on the connection label to quickly change your z/OS connection name.

Enabled user-replaceable modules (URM) for CICS profiles

Debug CICS profiles now support user-replaceable modules. You can enable them simply by checking this checkbox under Advanced Program Interruption Filters when creating a CICS profile.

Happy Debugging!