This topic tells how to start developing applications with
EGL Rich UI.
Enabling the Rich UI capability
If you are
working in an existing workspace, enable the Rich UI capability:
- Click Window > Preferences. The Preferences dialog
box is displayed.
- Expand General and click Capabilities.
The Capabilities page is displayed.
- Click Advanced. The Advanced
Capabilities dialog is displayed.
- Click EGL Rich UI and click OK.
- Click Apply to save your changes and remain
on the Preferences dialog box. Alternatively,
click OK to save the changes and exit the page;
or click Cancel to cancel the changes and exit
the dialog box.
Setting the Rich UI editor as the default for EGL
files
If you create a new project, EGL automatically selects
the correct editor for the type of file you open. This means a Rich
UI handler opens in the EGL Rich UI editor. However, if you import
a project into your workspace, EGL opens all .egl files with the standard
EGL source editor. You can force EGL to always use the EGL Rich UI
editor for files with the .egl extension:
- Click Window > Preferences. The Preferences dialog
box is displayed.
- Expand General and Editors and
click File Associations. The File
Associations dialog is displayed.
- In the File types section, click .egl
- In the Associated editors section, click EGL
Rich UI Editor and, at the right, click Default
- Click OK
Accessing the Rich UI samples
Use the Rich
UI samples to explore the technology:
- Click Help -> Samples.
The Help dialog box is displayed.
- Expand Samples, Technology samples.
- Click Rich UI technical sample.
- If your workbench does not already have the com.ibm.egl.rui project,
click the entry to it.
- Click the entry to import the samples.
- In the workbench Project Explorer, expand the project com.ibm.egl.rui.samples,
file EGL Source, package contents.
- If you previously set the Rich UI editor to be the default for
EGL files, double-click contents.egl. Otherwise,
right-click contents.egl and select .
- Select the Preview tab at the bottom of
the editor.
- Follow the on-screen directions and try out the alternatives presented
there.
Creating your first Rich UI project
When
you want to work outside of the Rich UI samples project, do as follows:
- Click File -> New -> Project. The New
Project wizard is displayed.
- Expand EGL, click EGL Project and
then Next. The New EGL Project page
is displayed.
- Type a project name and select Rich UI Project.
In most cases, complete the task by clicking Finish,
However, if you want to consider additional options, continue here:
- Click Next so that the EGL Project page
is displayed.
- To include the project in the directory that stores the current
workspace, select the check box for Use the default location
for the project; otherwise, specify a different directory
by clearing the check box and using the Browse mechanism.
- An EGL deployment descriptor lets your application access remote
services in a flexible way, so that at configuration time, an installer
can change the details of service access. The overhead of including
the descriptor is small, and we recommend that you select the check
box for Create an EGL deployment descriptor regardless
of your intent. Click Next. The EGL
Settings page is displayed.
- The Projects tab lists all other projects
in your workspace. Click the check box beside each project that you
want to add to the project's EGL build path.
- To put the projects in a different order or to export any of them,
click the Order and Export tab and do as follows:
(i) To change the position of a project in the build-path order, select
the project and click the Up and Down buttons;
(ii) to export a project, select the related check box; and (iii)
to handle all the projects at once, click the Select All or Deselect
All button.
- Click Finish.
Reviewing general information on EGL
See the
following topics in the
EGL Programmer's Guide (aside from
topics specifically on Rich UI):
- Using EGL with the Eclipse IDE
- Introduction to EGL projects through Properties:
- In relation to Data parts, ignore references to Form Group and
ArrayDictionary
- In relation to Logic parts, ignore references to Handlers (other
than Rich UI handlers) and Programs
- Ignore Build parts other than the build descriptor and the deployment
descriptor
- Content assist
- Searching for EGL files and parts
- Setting Preferences in the EGL editor; specifically, the
following topics:
- Setting Preferences for folding in the EGL editor
- Setting Preferences for organizing import statements in the
EGL editor
- Setting Preferences for source styles
- Enabling and disabling code templates
- EGL debugger commands
- Setting preferences for the EGL debugger
Exclude the following subjects when reviewing
the
EGL Language Reference:
- File and database access; related statements such as forEach and get,
and related Exception records. When you work with Rich UI, all such
access is handled by invoked services.
- The Program-related statements transfer and call.
- User interfaces.
- Record stereotypes other than BasicRecord and ExceptionRecord.
- Details that are specific to Java™ or
COBOL processing; in particular, details related to J2EE, CICS®, IMS™,
and z/OS® batch.
- Compatibility with VisualAge® Generator
or Informix® 4GL.
- System libraries ConsoleLib, ConverseLib, DliLib, J2eeLib, JavaLib,
LobLib, PortalLib SqlLib, VgLib, and VgVar.
See the following topics in the
EGL Generation Guide (aside
from topics specifically on Rich UI):
- Introduction to EGL generation
- Build descriptor part
Reviewing compatibility issues
Here are
the major compatibility issues: