Bean Extender: Guide to Demos


Overview of the Assembly Surface

The Assembly Surface is divided into the following areas:


* Figure sembly1 not displayed.

The Control Area

The control area is a horizontal area across the top of the Assembly Surface comprised of a menu bar and input fields. The menu bar includes the following menus:
File Items that control the editing session.
View Views with which you can work.
Options Items that control how the Assembly Surface displays.

The input fields control the assembly as a whole. Fields in this area include:
Class Identifies the class of the aggregated bean.
Extends Identifies the Java class you are extending, for example, Applet, Frame, or Panel.
Package Identifies the package to which the generated bean will belong.
Repository Identifies the location in which the generated bean will be stored.
Note:The Class, Extends, Package, and Repository fields must all be filled in before a bean can be generated.

There are check box controls located beneath the input fields for the generated bean. The demos do not use these controls.

The Working Area

The working area contains three sections. Each section uses a notebook paradigm as follows:

Left section

Currently only the Contents view is assigned to this section. The Contents view displays the beans that have been added to the aggregated bean being assembled.
Note:The Contents view is automatically opened the first time the Assembly Surface is started.

Center section

Views assigned to this section include:

  • Beans
  • Customizer
  • Dips
  • Event Connection
  • Layout
  • Log
  • Publish
  • Scripting
  • Source

Notes:

  1. The Beans view is automatically opened the first time the Assembly Surface is started.
  2. For additional information about the views assigned to the center section, refer to the Bean Extender Guide to Features document.

Right section

Views assigned to this section include:

  • Applied Dips
  • Properties
Note:When the Assembly Surface is started for the first time, this section is empty.

Each view displays as a notebook tab. A right mouse click on a notebook tab presents a pop-up menu that allows you to close that view or to present the view as a separate window. The material displayed on each notebook page varies.

The Action Area

The action area at the bottom of the Assembly Surface is comprised of several buttons and a status bar. Buttons in this area include:

Generate

Generates a new bean. The Class, Extends, Package, and Repository fields must be filled in before this button becomes active.

Run

Runs the selected bean.

Debug

Invokes the debugger on the selected bean.

Stop

Stops all beans that are currently running.

The status bar displays informational and error messages. Each time you perform an operation on the Assembly Surface using one of the buttons or a menu selection, the status of the operation displays in the status bar. The status bar is the only visible indication that work is being performed because the cursor does not change to an hourglass.
Note:If you encounter difficulties and the status bar is not displaying any informational messages, check the Log view for additional error messages.


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