Quickstart

Get up and running with PowerOn Pro.

PowerOn Pro brings a complete language server, direct integration to Symitar, and an incredible UX to level up your credit union's development toolkit through Visual Studio Code.

More of a TL;DR developer? Feel free to jump down to the TL;DR section where we cover the "essentials" for getting up and running.

This quickstart is designed to help you get your first Symitar connection created in the PowerOn Pro extension. Through this quickstart, you will learn:

  • How to get PowerOn Pro installed

  • Overview of some of the basic concepts of PowerOn Pro

  • How to use a Remote Sym

If you run into any challenges or have questions getting started, please join our Libum Community on Discord.

Installing PowerOn Pro

There are two methods for installing the PowerOn Pro extension.

  1. Using the install link on the Visual Studio Marketplace (ref. PowerOn Pro)

  2. Selecting the Extensions button ( ) in VS Code and searching for "poweron pro"

The PowerOn Pro extension via Marketplace in VS Code.

Getting connected to Symitar

Start by clicking the PowerOn Pro logo ( ) on the bottom left of the VS Code status bar. This will launch the PowerOn Pro menu for you to be able to manage your connections.

Main menu for PowerOn Pro.

Next, select "Click to manage connections..."

Manage Symitar Connections menu in PowerOn Pro.

Select "Add new Connection +" followed by either "SSH" or "HTTPs" depending on your connection preference and capability of your Symitar host.

What's the difference between SSH and HTTPs? In the context of a Symitar connection, SSH uses what we refer to as the Command Line Interface (CLI) over the SSH protocol (aka Symulate or Episys Text Mode). This is nifty utility but unfortunately is explicitly disabled for some credit unions and can sometimes be unstable. Additionally, we aren't sure how much longer it will around.

For a connection over HTTPs, an API over the Symitar Application Server is used to make direct calls to the Symitar host. This is a much more stable design pattern and should generally be available to every up-to-date credit union.

Required input (SSH)

This provides a brief overview of each input box you'll receive while creating an SSH connection.

Field
Description
Example

Symitar Hostname

The endpoint by which you connect to the Symitar host

93.455.43.232 or symitar

Symitar Username

Your username for the AIX / Symitar host

libum

Symitar Password

Your password for the AIX / Symitar host

hunter2

Sym Number

The directory (aka Sym) number for your connection

627

Symitar User Number

Your "Symitar Quest" user number (just the number)

1995

Symitar User Password

Your "Symitar Quest" password (just the password)

Once you've gone through the prompts, you should expect to see ( ) in the status bar of VS Code (bottom left). Anything different means you may have had an issue connecting or have only be able to establish a partial connection.

Having trouble connecting? For any consistent connection issues or even general questions, feel free to let us know on Discord or by emailing us at [email protected].

Required input (HTTPs)

Please refer to the Required input (SSH) for the context on the majority of the required inputs as they're nearly identical with the exception of the following:

Field
Description
Example

Symitar Application Server Port

The port which your SymAppServer communicates over. This is typically 42 + symNumber unless you're running at the SYSTEM level. Read more on eDocs.

42627

Setting up a Remote Sym

Really quick... Before you get started, you will to complete 1) Setting up Rsync on Windows - this is required in order to efficiently manage a mirror copy of your remote Sym locally (so we can access all of VS Code's APIs) 2) Set a root path the Local Symitar Path setting - this will act as the location to store all of your Remote Sym folders for PowerOn Pro to manage.

From the activity bar (on the left-hand side), select the Symitar Explorer button ( ) and if you've already followed Getting connected to Symitar as well as the required dependencies installed on your machine, you should see the "Open Remote Sym" in the view.

Remote Syms view within Symitar Explorer activity panel.

Select "Open Remote Sym" and you should expect to see a menu giving you a selection from available Symitar connections.

Open Remote Sym menu with a single available Symitar connection.

After selecting the preferred connection, you will find a list of available Syms (based on the individual connections you've created) as a menu as well.

List of available Remote Sym connections in the Open Remote Sym menu.

Selecting a Remote Sym here will automatically do the following:

  1. Create a new directory ( /<symitarHostname>/<symNumber> ) using the configured Local Symitar Path as the root

  2. Update the VS Code workspace at that local folder

  3. Begin synchronizing the configured directories (e.g. /HELPFILES, /LETTERSPECS, or /REPWRITERSPECS)

Appreciate File Icon theming? We've created a custom File Icon theme for VS Code (extends the default vs-seti icons) that will turn this: into this: Just open up the Command Palette (Ctrl + Shift + P) and type "File Icon Theme" and select to enable it.

TL;DR

All of the available commands within PowerOn Pro are listed on the PowerOn Pro Commands page and can also be listed by opening up the Command Palette (Ctrl + Shift + P) and typing "PowerOn Pro".

  • To create a connection (SSH or HTTPs), use the Manage Symitar Connections command

  • If you want to open a Remote Sym you'll need first set a root path in the Local Symitar Path setting as well as have both rsync and sshpass utilities via WSL (ref. Setting up Rsync on Windows)

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