The Assemble view

The API Manager of IBM® API Connect features an Assemble view that you can use to create assemblies. With assemblies, you can readily tailor your APIs to include components such as activity logging and redaction of specific fields.

You can access the Assemble view by clicking the Assemble tab at the top of the Develop API editor. This view includes a palette, which lists the available components, a property sheet, which is used to configure a component, and a canvas, which is used to arrange and visualize the assembly’s components.

The palette

The palette, shown on the left side of the Assemble view, is a list of different components that you can include in your assembly. The palette can be hidden by clicking the Show/hide policy palette icon in the upper left corner.

The canvas

You can use the canvas to create a graphical representation of the assembly flow. You can drag various components from the palette on the left to the appropriate location on the canvas on the right. When you drag a component, valid positions are shown by dashed boxes.

Note: You must click Save in the Assemble view to save your assembly updates, and to make them appear in the Source view.

API calls are made at the left, unfilled, circle, and returned at the right, filled, circle. You can insert components between the two circles to modify the data received from the call, or returned by the response. To add a component, select it in the palette and drag it across to one of the dashed boxes that appear when you move the component over the canvas.

You can use the Show catches toggle, in the upper right corner of the page, to show and hide error catches in the palette. A catch is a section of the assembly that is applied when an API call results in the corresponding HTTP status code being returned. Click the catch section to open the property sheet for all your catches.

You can zoom the view of your canvas in and out by clicking the + and - icons. To fit the canvas to the screen size, click the Zoom to fit icon .

You can filter the canvas to show only the parts of it that will apply to a specific operation by clicking the Filter by operation icon and then selecting the operation from the drop-down list. Click the Clear operation filter icon to remove the filter.

The property sheet

When you select a component that is in the assembly by clicking it, details about the component are displayed in the property sheet on the right. In this pane, you can configure the component's properties. The options available to you in the property sheet are specific to the type of component you are working with. For some components, you can add and remove properties by clicking Object Properties and selecting the property from the drop-down menu.

You can release the property sheet by clicking the Close icon .