WebSphere Studio Application Developer Version 5 Programming Guide part 9 ppsx

You can also change the default perspective from the preferences dialog: ? From the main menu bar, select Window > Preferences -> Workbench -> Preferences.. Organizing and customizing pe

Specifying the default perspective

The J2EE perspective is Application Developer’s default perspective You can also change the default perspective from the preferences dialog:

򐂰 From the main menu bar, select Window > Preferences -> Workbench -> Preferences

򐂰 Select the perspective that you want to define as the default, and click Make Default

򐂰 Click OK

Organizing and customizing perspectives

Application Developer provides the following features to organizing perspectives:

򐂰 Open perspectives

򐂰 Customize perspectives

򐂰 Reset perspectives

򐂰 Save perspectives

򐂰 Close perspectives These actions can be found in the Window menu To customize a perspective, click Window -> Customize Perspective The Customize Perspective dialog opens (Figure 3-6)

Tips:

򐂰 The name of the perspective is shown in the window title area

򐂰 The vertical toolbar at the left side of the Workbench, called the shortcut bar, provides icons that you can use to quickly switch between the perspectives that you have opened

򐂰 To close a perspective, right-click that perspective's button on the shortcut bar and select Close

򐂰 After working with Application Developer for some time, you have opened several perspectives You might have the impression that Application Developer is working slower It is good practice to close perspectives, because they can consume a lot of memory; hence, they slow down the overall performance

Figure 3-6 Customize perspective

In the dialog you can use the check boxes to select which elements you want to see on drop-down menus of the selected perspective Items you do not select are still accessible by clicking the Other menu option These options can be customizes:

򐂰 The New menu

򐂰 The Window -> Open Perspective menu

򐂰 The Window -> Show View menu

򐂰 Action sets (icons) that show up on the toolbar

You can also customize a perspective by adding, closing, moving, and resizing views To add a new view to the perspective, simply click Window -> Show View

and select the view you would like to add to the currently open perspective You can move a view to another pane by using drag and drop To move a view, simply select its title bar, drag the view, and drop it on top of another view Both views are now stacked and you can use the tabs at the bottom of the view to switch between them

While you drag the view, the mouse cursor changes into a drop cursor The drop cursor indicates what will happen when you release the view you are dragging:

The floating view appears below the view underneath the cursor

The floating view appears to the left of the view underneath the cursor

The floating view appears to the right of the view underneath the cursor

The floating view appears above the view underneath the cursor

The floating view appears as a tab in the same pane as the view underneath the cursor You can also drop the view on the perspective toolbar to make it a fast view

You cannot dock the floating view at this point

Once you have configured the perspective to your preferences, you can save it

as your own perspective by selecting Window -> Save Perspective As

To restore the currently opened perspective to its original layout, select Window -> Reset Perspective

Perspectives walkthrough

In this section we describe the perspectives that we are using to develop, test, and deploy the samples in this document

J2EE perspective

The default perspective of Application Developer is the J2EE perspective, shown

in Figure 3-7 Application Developer lets you change the default perspective See

“Specifying the default perspective” on page 54 for an instruction to change the default perspective

The J2EE perspective contains the following views that you would typically use when you develop resources for enterprise application, EJB, Web, and

application client, or connector projects or modules:

򐂰 J2EE Navigator view—This view provides a project and Java-centric view of

your J2EE and other projects in the workspace It will show the project resources and not the individual model objects as in the J2EE Hierarchy view For Java projects, the source folders will show the packaged based grouping

Tip: You can double-click a view’s title bar to maximize the view Double-click

again to restore it to the original size Alternatively, you can press CTRL-M to maximize and restore the view

of the files much like the Java Packages view Note that the four J2EE module types (EJB, application client, Web, and connector) are also Java projects

Figure 3-7 J2EE perspective

򐂰 J2EE Hierarchy view—Provides a hierarchical view of the content models

for J2EE resources found in the J2EE projects This view provides you with

an easy way to view deployment descriptor trees of your J2EE applications and modules, and to quickly navigate to editors for component objects Additionally, it provides links to EJB to RDB mapping, and for configuring applications to run on a J2EE application server

򐂰 Outline view—Shows the outline of the file that you are editing The Outline

view changes as you change open files in different editors or select different editor tabs

򐂰 Tasks view—Lists the to-do items that you have entered, plus any

automatically logged problems, warnings, or other information associated with the selected project The former is true if you have this option enabled

You can double-click an item to address the specific problem in the appropriate resource

򐂰 Properties view—Provides a tabular view of the properties and associated

values of objects in files you have open in an editor For example, you can specify converters in the Properties view of the Mapping editor

򐂰 Status bar—Provides a description of the location of selected objects in the

J2EE Hierarchy and J2EE Navigator views in the left side When file and deployment descriptors are open, it shows the read-only state of the files and the line and column numbers when applicable Sometimes when long operations run, a status monitor will appear in the status bar, along with a button with a stop sign icon Clicking the stop sign will stop the operation when the operation can be cancelled

Resource perspective

The Resource perspective is a very simple perspective (Figure 3-8)

Figure 3-8 Resource perspective

By default it shows these elements:

򐂰 Navigator view—This view provides a hierarchical view of all the resources

in the Workbench By using this view you can open files for editing, or select resources for operations such as exporting

򐂰 Outline view—This view displays an outline structure of the file that is

currently open in the editor area, and lists structural elements The contents

of the outline view are editor-specific

򐂰 Editor pane—Depending on the type of file you are editing, the appropriate

editor is displayed in the editor area For example, if you are editing a java

file, the Java editor displays in the editor area

Web perspective

Web developers can use the Web perspective to build and edit Web resources, such as servlets, JSPs, HTML pages, Style sheets and images, as well as the deployment descriptor file, web.xml (Figure 3-9)

Figure 3-9 Web perspective

The Web perspective contains a number of views, such as:

򐂰 J2EE Navigator view—The same view is included in the J2EE perspective.

򐂰 Page Designer—Page Designer allows you to work with HTML files, JSP

files, and embedded JavaScript Within the Page Designer, you can move among three pages that provide different ways for you to work with the file that you are editing You can switch pages by clicking the tabs at the bottom

of the editor pane These pages work in conjunction with the Workbench Outline and Properties views, tool bar buttons, menu bar options, and context menus

– Design—The Design page of Page Designer is the WYSIWYG mode for

editing HTML and JSP files As you edit in the Design page, your work reflects the layout and style of the Web pages you build without the added complexity of source tagging syntax, navigation, and debugging Although many tasks can also be performed in the same way in the Source page, the Design page provides full access to Page Designer menu options, context menu actions, view-specific GUI options (such as those in the Styles view), and drag and drop behavior

– Source—The Source page enables you to view and work with a file's

source code directly The Outline and Properties views both have features that supplement the Source page

– Preview—Shows how the current page is likely to look when viewed in a

Web browser JSPs shown in this view will contain only static HTML output

򐂰 Gallery view—Contains a variety of catalogs of reusable files that can be

applied to Web pages The file types available include images, wallpaper, Web art, sound files, and style sheet files

򐂰 Library view—Allows you to catalog and organize reusable programming

objects, such as HTML tagging, JavaScript, and JSP code, along with files and custom JSP tags The view can be extended based on additional objects that you define and include

򐂰 Outline view—Shows the outline of the file that you are currently editing For

example, for an HTML file, the Outline view shows the tag structure and hierarchy within the HTML file The context menu for any selected tag enables you to remove the tag, add an attribute to the tag (if any exist or have not already been specified), add a child tag (if any exist), and add a sibling tag before or after the tag

򐂰 Web Structure view—Provides you with a way to navigate through the

various referenced parts of a Web application from a starting point such as a Web page (JSP or HTML file), an Action mapping, or a global forward Parts

of a Web application can be JSP files, links, Action mappings, form beans, and so forth

The view also give you a general idea of how the different parts of a Web application are linked together and how different parts reference each other The view provides additional information about a part to facilitate Web application development Among the information displayed are errors that may cause a Web application to run incorrectly and data parameters that a part requires

򐂰 Attributes view—Provides tabbed pages that allow you to update attributes

for tags selected in files open in the active Web editor Changes to attribute value text fields are reflected in the edited file immediately when cursor focus

is changed, or when you press the Enter key In addition, changes to any of the controls in the Attributes view are immediately reflected in the edited file

򐂰 Links view—Shows the resources that the selected file in the J2EE

Navigator view links to or uses It also shows the files that link to the file selected in the J2EE Navigator view or are open in Page Designer

򐂰 Thumbnail view—Shows thumbnails of the images in the selected project,

folder, or file This view is especially valuable when used in conjunction with the Gallery view to add images from the artwork libraries supplied by WebSphere Studio to your page designs You can drag and drop from this view into the J2EE Navigator view or the Design or Source page of Page Designer

򐂰 Styles view—Provides guided editing for cascading style sheets and

individual style definitions for HTML elements

򐂰 Colors view—Allows you to apply colors from a palette (or custom colors) to

selected objects in the editing area

򐂰 Servers view—Lists servers defined for the project and their status.

Java perspective

The Java perspective (Figure 3-10) supports developers who create, edit and build Java code

The Java perspective consists of an editor area and displays by default the following views:

򐂰 Package Explorer view—This is displayed by default in the Java perspective

and shows the Java element hierarchy of all the Java projects in your Workbench It provides you with a Java-specific view of the resources shown

in the Navigator The element hierarchy is derived from the project's build classpath For each project, its source folders and referenced libraries are shown in the tree view From here you can open and browse the contents of both internal and external JAR files

Figure 3-10 Java perspective

򐂰 Hierarchy view—Can be opened for a selected type to show its super

classes and subclasses It offers three different ways to look at a class hierarchy:

– The Type Hierarchy displays the type hierarchy of the selected type, that

is, its position in the hierarchy, along with all its Superclass and subclasses

– The Supertype Hierarchy displays the supertype hierarchy of the selected type

– The Subtype Hierarchy displays the subtype hierarchy of the selected type More information about the Hierarchy view is provided in “Java Type Hierarchy perspective” on page 64

򐂰 Outline view—Shows the elements (imports, class, fields, and methods),

that exist in the source file that is currently open in the editor Clicking an item

in the outline will position you in the editor view at the line where that structure element is defined

Packages/Classes

Java Editor

Fields/Methods

Tasks

See Chapter 5, “Developing Java applications” on page 93 for more information about how to work with the Java perspective

Java Browsing perspective

The Java Browsing perspective also addresses Java developers, but it provides different views (Figure 3-11)

Figure 3-11 Java Browsing perspective

The Java Browsing perspective also displays an editor area, but unlike the Java perspective, it displays by default the following views: Projects, Packages, Types, Members, and an editor pane

Tip: To get a larger Java editor view, you can move the Outline view and

place it tabbed next to the Package Explorer and Hierarchy view

Java Editor