Message Flow editor

The Message Flow editor contains the following views:

Editor view

The editor view shows the contents of the resource that is currently open. It also shows tabs for each of the resources that you have open so that you can quickly switch between them.

When the resource that is open is a message flow, two tabs are displayed, called Graph and User Defined Properties.

When you select Graph, the editor view contains a graphical display of the message flow.

The Palette contains all the available nodes that you can include in the message flow. By default, the palette appears on the left side of the editor view. You can move it to the right side of the editor view by clicking the palette while it is in collapsed mode, and dragging the bar to the right of the editor view.

When you select the User Defined Properties tab, a User Defined Properties editor is opened that allows you to change the User Defined Properties of the message flow. The User Defined Properties editor consists of a User Property Hierarchy view and a Details view.

The User Property Hierarchy view displays three icons, Add Property Group, Add Property, and Delete that you can use to update the property hierarchy. When you add a property, a Details view is opened. In the Details view you can define the property Type and Default Value.

Palette view

The Palette view lists the available nodes that you can select and include in the message flow. For more information about the palette and how to customize the layout and settings, see Message flow node palette.

The icons in the toolbar and their actions are shown in the following table.

Icon	Label	Action
	Manhattan Layout	Displays all node connections as a series of horizontal and vertical lines
	Show Grid	Displays a grid of horizontal and vertical dotted lines in the background of the editor area.
	Grid Properties	Defines the horizontal and vertical spacing of the grid markers, and the gap between the borders of the editor area and the start of the grid markers.
	Align Left	Lines up the left edge of the currently selected nodes. Enabled only when more than one node is selected.
	Align Center	Lines up the horizontal center point (between left and right) of the currently selected nodes. Enabled only when more than one node is selected.
	Align Right	Lines up the right edge of all the currently selected nodes. Enabled only when more than one node is selected.
	Align Top	Lines up the top edge of the currently selected nodes. Enabled only when more than one node is selected.
	Align Middle	Lines up the vertical center point (between top and bottom) of the currently selected nodes. Enabled only when more than one node is selected.
	Align Bottom	Lines up the bottom edge of the currently selected nodes. Enabled only when more than one node is selected.
	Show Distribute Box	Displays a rectangular box around the currently selected nodes.
	Distribute Horizontally	Aligns the currently selected nodes with the nearest right or left edge within the distribute box.
	Distribute Vertically	Aligns the currently selected nodes with the nearest top or bottom edge within the distribute box.