Testing a user-defined pattern

Ensure that you test your user-defined pattern before you share it with your pattern users.

Before you begin

Complete the following tasks:

About this task

Before you distribute your user-defined pattern, you can test it to ensure that it works correctly. To test your user-defined pattern, the Pattern Authoring editor opens a temporary workspace in which you can generate an instance of your user-defined pattern. You can then check that your user-defined pattern works correctly. If your user-defined pattern contains Java™ pattern authoring API code, see Testing Java code. If your user-defined pattern contains PHP pattern authoring API code, see Testing PHP API code.

Procedure

To test your user-defined pattern:

  1. In the Pattern Authoring editor, click the Create Pattern tab.
  2. Click Test Pattern.
    The Workspace Launcher window opens.
  3. Select the temporary workspace in which to generate an instance of your user-defined pattern. Click Browse. Select a workspace or enter a workspace in the Workspace field. Click OK.
    The selected workspace opens.
  4. Click the Patterns Explorer tab in the Application Development view.
    Your new user-defined pattern is shown in the Patterns Explorer view.
  5. Test your pattern by generating a new pattern instance.
    See Creating a pattern instance.
  6. If you want to change your pattern, change the pattern authoring project and then rebuild the pattern plug-ins.
    If you are changing only Java or PHP pattern authoring API code, you do not have to rebuild the pattern plug-ins; see Testing Java code and Testing PHP API code.

What to do next

After you have tested the pattern, you can share it with the pattern users, see Packaging and distributing pattern plug-ins.