44 WebSphere Studio Application Developer Version 5 Programming Guide The symbol in front of each template, shown Figure 2-18, in the code assist list is colored yellow, so you can distinguish between a template and a Java statement entry. Figure 2-18 Using templates for code assist The Templates preference page allows you to create new and edit existing templates. A template is a convenience for the programmer to quickly insert often reoccurring source code patterns. To open the Templates preferences page, click Window -> Preferences -> Java and select Templates from the Java tree, as shown in Figure 2-19. Figure 2-19 Templates preferences Chapter 2. Setting up your Workbench and workspace preferences 45 The Templates preferences page opens where you can perform the following tasks: Create templates Edit existing templates Remove templates Import templates from XML files Export selected or all templates to a XML file Enable or disable selected or all templates for code assist. To create a new template, click New . The New Template dialog comes up as shown in Figure 2-20. Here you have to enter the name of the template, the description and its pattern. Figure 2-20 Creating a new template The name you enter here, will be displayed in the code assist list when you press Ctrl-Space. In the Pattern field you have to enter the actual code you want to be inserted by using the template. There are also some predefined variables available. These variables can be inserted by clicking Insert Variable . This will bring up a list and a brief description of the variable. Tip: Application Developer provides additional templates that are located in the following directory of Application Developer’s installation: wstools\eclipse\plugins\com.ibm.etools.jbcf.codegen_5.0.1\Examples\Templates You can import all templates in a directory by selecting the AllTemplates.xml files of the specific sub directory. 46 WebSphere Studio Application Developer Version 5 Programming Guide To import these templates, launch the templates preferences dialog and click Import to open a file browser, and then navigate to the directory containing the template files. You can also enable or disable specific or all templates by either using the check boxes in front of the template or using the Enable All or Disable All buttons. Exporting templates exports them to an XML file in a folder you can specify. Summary In this chapter we covered the basic functionality of the Workbench and the underlying Java development environment. In particular, we discussed setting up workspaces and preferences. © Copyright IBM Corp. 2003. All rights reserved. 47 Chapter 3. Perspectives, views, and editors Application Developer supports a role-based development model. It does so by providing several different perspectives on the same project. Each perspective is suited for a particular role and provides the developer with the necessary tools to work on the tasks associated with that role. This chapter provides information about these topics: 3 Integrated development environment (IDE) Resource perspective XSL Debug perspective Java perspective Plug-in Development perspective Java Browsing perspective Data perspective Java Type Hierarchy perspective Debug perspective Web perspective Profiling perspective J2EE perspective Component Test perspective Server perspective CVS Repository Exploring perspective XML perspective Install/Update perspective 48 WebSphere Studio Application Developer Version 5 Programming Guide Integrated development environment (IDE) An integrated development environment (IDE) is a set of software development tools such as source editors, compilers, and debugger, that are accessible from a single user interface. In Application Developer, the IDE is called the Workbench. Application Developer’s Workbench supports customizable perspectives that support role-based development. It provides a common way for all members of a project team to create, manage, and navigate resources easily. It consists of a number of interrelated views and editors. Views provide different ways of looking at the resource you are working in. Editors allow you to create and modify the resource. Perspectives are a combination of views and editors that show various aspects of the project resource, and are organized by developer role or task. For example, a Java developer would work most often in the Java perspective, while a Web designer would work in the Web perspective. Several perspectives are provided in Application Developer, and team members also can customize them, according to their current role of preference. You can open more than one perspective at a time, and switch perspectives while you are working with Application Developer. Before describing the perspectives, we take a look at Application Developer’s help feature. Application Developer help Application Developer’s online help system provides access to the documentation, and lets you browse, search, and print help content. It also has a full-text search engine included as well as context-sensitive help. Application Developer provides the help content in a separate window that you can open by selecting Help -> Help Contents from the menu bar (Figure 3-1). Chapter 3. Perspectives, views, and editors 49 Figure 3-1 Help windows bookshelf In the new help window you see the available books in the left pane and the content in the right pane. When selecting a book in the left pane, the appropriate table of contents opens up and you can select a topic. At any time, you can return to the bookshelf by clicking the Table of Contents button . You can navigate through the help documents by using the Go Back and Go Forward buttons on the top right side. There are also buttons for printing the document, toggling and synchronizing the navigation. Synchronizing the navigation synchronizes the navigation frame with the current topic. This is helpful if you have followed several links to related topics in several files, and want to see where the current topic fits into the navigation path. Figure 3-2 shows the help window with the table of contents of the Application developer information book. 50 WebSphere Studio Application Developer Version 5 Programming Guide Figure 3-2 Application Developer help Application Developer’s help manual contains a lot of useful information about the tool and technologies. It provides information about the different concepts used by the Workbench, the different Tasks you can do within the Workbench, and some useful samples and tutorials. The Search field allows you to do a search over all books. The link Advanced Search opens a dialog box where you can specify your search in more detail (Figure 3-3). Note: The first time you search the online help, the help system initiates an index-generation process. This process builds the indexes for the search engine to use. It may take several minutes, depending on the amount of documentation. Each time you add or modify the documentation set (for example, when you install a new feature or update an existing one), the index will be updated to reflect the new information set. Chapter 3. Perspectives, views, and editors 51 Figure 3-3 Advanced Search dialog for help Enter your search expression in the appropriate field of the search dialog and select the set of books to searched. Click Search to start your search. Perspectives Perspectives provide a way to look at a project through different “glasses”. Depending on the role you are in and/or the task you have to do, you open a different perspective. A perspective defines an initial set and layout of views and editors for performing a particular set of development activities, for example, EJB development, profiling, and so forth. You can change the layout and the preferences and save a perspective that you can have customized, so that you can open it again later. Views Views provide alternative presentations of resources or ways of navigating through the information in your Workbench. For example, the Navigator view displays projects and other resources that you are working as a folder hierarchy. Application Developer provides synchronization between different views and editors. A view might appear by itself, or stacked with other views in a tabbed notebook arrangement. A perspective determines the views that you are likely to need. For example, the Java perspective includes the Packages view and the Hierarchy view to help you work with Java packages and hierarchies. 52 WebSphere Studio Application Developer Version 5 Programming Guide Editors When you open a file, Application Developer automatically opens the editor that is associated with that file type. For example, an HTML editor is opened for .html, .htm and .jsp files while a Java editor is opened for .java and .jav files. Editors that have been associated with specific file types open in the editor area of the Workbench. By default, editors are stacked in a notebook arrangement inside the editor area. You also have the option of tiling open files. However, if there is no associated editor for a resource, Application Developer will attempt to launch an external editor outside the Workbench. Perspective layout Most of Application Developer’s perspectives use a similar layout. Figure 3-4 shows a layout of a perspective which is quite common. Figure 3-4 Perspective layout Source Editor (Code) Design View (Visual Editor) Navigator view Package Explorer view Hierarchy view Menu bar / Toolbar Outline view Properties view Task view (show compilation errors) Search view (display search results) Console view (program output, server status) synchronize synchronize synchronize Chapter 3. Perspectives, views, and editors 53 On the left side you have views that help you to navigate through your project’s files, where in the middle of the Workbench you find a larger pane, usually the source editor or the design pane. This allows you to change the code and design of files in your project. The right pane usually contains the Outline or the Properties views. In some perspectives you can see that the editor pane is a little larger and the Outline or Properties view is placed at the bottom left corner of the perspective. The content of the views is synchronized. This means that if you change a value in the Properties view, for example, the Editor view is automatically updated to reflect the change. Switching perspectives There are two ways to open another perspective. You can use the Open a Perspective icon in the top left corner of the Workbench working area and select the appropriate perspective from the list. Alternatively, you can click Window -> Open Perspective and either select a perspective or click Other to bring up the Select Perspective dialog (Figure 3-5). Figure 3-5 Select Perspective dialog Select the perspective you would like to open and confirm the dialog with OK . . contents of the Application developer information book. 50 WebSphere Studio Application Developer Version 5 Programming Guide Figure 3-2 Application Developer help Application Developer s help. work with Java packages and hierarchies. 52 WebSphere Studio Application Developer Version 5 Programming Guide Editors When you open a file, Application Developer automatically opens the editor. 44 WebSphere Studio Application Developer Version 5 Programming Guide The symbol in front of each template, shown Figure 2- 18, in the code assist list is colored