2.1 Environment management
tools
2.1.1 Startup Launcher
 | See
also the Menu Reference, Section
7.1. |
When
MetaEdit+ is started it first opens a Startup Launcher as shown in
Figure 2-1. With this tool you can start
the login process
, set names and directory paths for the
repository, make backups of the repository, or file in patches. Most of these
functions are related to the management of the repository, and are explained in
Section
5.1 and in the System
Administrator’s Guide. Here we describe the login process, user
reconstruction, and how patch files can be loaded into MetaEdit+. We also show
how you can edit reports common to all methods, set the web browser used to read
the HTML manual, choose an external text editor, and adjust printer
settings.

Figure 2-1. Startup Launcher.
Login and opening the repository
In most cases, you will only need to use the login function of
the Startup Launcher. To login:
1) | Press
the Login
button. |
2) | Select
a repository from the list that
opens. |
3) | Enter
your user name and password
(Figure 2-2). |
4) | Press
OK. |

Figure 2-2. Entering user name and password.
| When
MetaEdit+ is delivered the default user name and password are both
‘user’: use tab or the mouse to move between the fields, not return.
If the login fails, you will be told the reason and you can try again or
‘Reconstruct’ the repository as appropriate. The login can also fail
because the number of users logged in equals the limit of your server license:
in this case you will see a dialog with the message ‘Login is not allowed
now’. |
| After
a successful login the Startup Launcher will close, and the main MetaEdit+
Launcher opens. Together with the Launcher you will get a dialog list where you
can select the projects you want to load. Projects can consist of pre-defined
methods, such as ‘SA/SD’ or ‘UML’, or include models
based on one or several methods: opening a project with models will
automatically load any necessary
methods. |
5) | Choose
one or more projects to be
loaded. |
| Depending
on the size of the projects and their methods, loading a project can take a
little while. During loading, the Launcher will be red, to show that no actions
are currently possible. When loading has finished it will turn green for a few
seconds, and then back to white. The text part of the Launcher window shows a
log of repository operations.
|
6) | Choose
the default project.
|
| If
you have selected more than one project to be opened MetaEdit+ will ask which is
the default project. The default project setting specifies where new graphs will
be stored. |
Exiting without logging in
If at some point you wish to exit MetaEdit+ without logging
in, simply close the Startup Launcher.
User reconstruction
Most
problem
conditions that can arise are handled automatically by MetaEdit+. Hardware and
software failures can however cause the repository to end up in an inconsistent
state. For these purposes MetaEdit+ offers the Reconstructor tool. Use of the
Reconstructor is described in more detail in the System Administrator’s
Guide: here we just describe how a user can reconstruct his user information, so
that he can log into the single user version after a crash.
You will be informed of the need for user reconstruction
when logging in: a dialog will inform you that the database is already being
used by another user. To rebuild the user information:
1) | Press
the Reconstruct
button. |
2) | Select
a repository from the dialog that
opens. |
3) | Enter
your user name and password
(Figure 2-2). |
4) | Press
OK. |
Next a dialog opens describing the
current user information.
Figure 2-3
shows an example of the user information dialog: ‘user’ is still
logged in, or the system has crashed while he was logged in. The user
information dialog lets you choose whether you want to reconstruct user
information or exit (because someone else is indeed logged in, or because you
have a long transaction image (see Section
5.1.1: Exiting MetaEdit+).

Figure 2-3. Warning about database state when reconstructing.
5) | Click
the Yes button to proceed with
reconstruction. |
Next MetaEdit+ opens a
Database recovery window (
Figure 2-4).
This contains a set of radio buttons for selecting actions, and lists of users
and areas to apply the chosen action to.
To carry out user reconstruction:
6) | Click
the user reconstruction radio
button. |
7) | Select
the user name you logged in with
(Figure 2-4). You can only reconstruct
users in bold: if you logged in as a non-system administrator user, you can only
reconstruct your current user. Users names are marked by an asterisk *, if that
user’s status file shows he was logged in the database when it
crashed. |
8) | Click
the Apply
button. |
9) | Close
the recovery window by clicking the Quit
button. |
Now you can login to the repository
from the Startup Launcher.

Figure 2-4. Database recovery window.
More advanced operations
The Startup Launcher also includes more advanced operations
for tailoring the behaviour of MetaEdit+ and working with repositories. To see
these, press the down arrow button in the Startup Launcher. The buttons on the
left are for modifying your MetaEdit+ image, and are described below. Those on
the right are for working with repositories, and are described in the System
Administrator’s Guide.

Figure 2-5. Extended Startup Launcher.
Image operations
When tailoring your image with the operations on the left of
the Startup Launcher, you will be prompted whether you want to make changes just
for this session, or to save the MetaEdit+ image with the changed reports. For
most operations, the save will happen immediately: for File in Patches and Edit
Reports the image will only be saved later, after you have closed the patch
windows or Report Browser and are closing the Startup Launcher. When saving, you
will be asked for the name of the image file. If you save to a different name
from that of your current image, remember to copy and edit the MetaEdit+
shortcut to point to your new image file. If you want to overwrite your current
MetaEdit+ image, you should make sure you have a backup of the image, or can
restore it from your original installation media, should you need to
later.
Installing patches
MetaCase Consulting is continually improving MetaEdit+. Rather
than distribute a whole large image file to you, improvements can be added to
your existing image by filing in patches. Patches are files (*.pat) that include
modifications, new features, and improvements to the MetaEdit+ environment. With
the ‘File in Patches’ function in the Startup Launcher you can
modify the program client or server image. Patching of the repository is
discussed in Chapter
5.
The File in Patches function can be reached by pressing
the down arrow button in the Startup Launcher. Pressing the ‘File in
Patches’ button opens two windows. One describes the current components of
MetaEdit+ (
Figure 2-6), and the other
allows you to browse and file in patches
(
Figure 2-7). The File in Patches
function will only work with special encoded patch files from MetaCase
Consulting. Make sure that the patch file is applicable to your version of
MetaEdit+.

Figure 2-6. Window describing currently loaded patches.

Figure 2-7. File list for filing in patches.
To file in
patches:
1) | Click
in the top pane of the File List window and write the name of the patch
files’ directory followed by *.pat (e.g. c:\meplus\*.pat) and press
return. |
2) | If
what you type does not appear, make sure your mouse is pointing at the top pane.
The middle pane now contains a list of patch files, e.g. in
Figure 2-7 a patch file named
type.pat. |
3) | Choose
the file in the middle
pane. |
4) | Open its
pop-up menu with the right mouse button and choose ‘file in’ from
the menu.
|
| Remember
to load patches in the right order (increasing date, or on the basis of some
other advice given with the patch files).
|
5) | Close
the Startup Launcher, e.g. by clicking window closing button.
|
6) | You will be
asked whether you want to continue after saving the patched image and then you
will be asked for the name of the image to be saved: answer e.g.
‘mep30a’.
|
| Do
not use the name of the earlier image file unless you have taken a copy of it as
a backup. |
Now the patched MetaEdit+ image is saved
to that name, and the program will exit or continue, depending on your answer to
the first confirmation dialog. The saved image now contains the patches, and you
should use that image in future.
Edit Reports
Edit Reports opens a Report Browser (see Section
4.1.4), allowing you to edit the default
set of generic reports. These reports are stored in the MetaEdit+ image, and can
be used in all models of all methods in any repository. Since you cannot test
reports from the Startup Launcher, as there are no models to test them on, you
will normally be reading in reports you have saved in files.
Set Help Path
Options | Set Help Path
lets you define where the online
HTML manual is stored, and how it will be opened. You can define the browser
application that will be used for viewing the manual, the root path to the
manual directory, and various options for how these will be combined to form a
command string, which MetaEdit+ will send to be executed by your operating
system.
The browser path can be left blank, in which case the HTML
file itself will be called. This works under Windows, but unfortunately there it
is not possible to open a given bookmark or point within a page in this way.
Thus when opening pages, the bookmark part (e.g. #Heading24) is stripped off by
default: then the page opens, and you can select the link to the correct
subheading from the short table of contents at the top of the page. By default,
the # part of the help link is removed if there is no browser path specified.
You can use the radio buttons to choose to always remove the hash part, or
always leave it.
To allow opening of pages directly at the correct
subheading, you must specify a browser. In Windows, it is normally sufficient to
specify simply ‘iexplore’ (Microsoft Internet Explorer) or
‘netscape’ (Netscape Navigator / Communicator): the full path is not
normally necessary.
The manual directory is normally ‘manuals’,
under your MetaEdit+ installation directory, and contains subdirectories
‘meplus’, ‘mwb’, and ‘sysadmin’ for the
standard manual, the Method Workbench manual, and the System Administrator
manual respectively. Using this option you can move the manual directories
elsewhere, for example to a shared location on a drive mounted from a server. By
default relative paths here will be expanded to full absolute paths if a browser
path has been given (this is because otherwise most browsers will search for the
manual page as if it were a WWW site, and fail to find it). You can also use the
radio buttons to choose to always expand relative paths for the manuals, or
never to expand them.
Some operating systems require path names containing
spaces or other special characters to be enclosed in double quote marks. By
default, in Windows the browser path and manual path will be quoted in this way.
You can use the radio buttons to choose to always quote these two parts of the
command, or not to quote them. The latter is useful if you wish to add the quote
marks yourself in the browser command, to allow specification of other command
line arguments for your browser.
Finally, you must store the help browser preferences by
saving them to the MetaEdit+ image. The image saving function is described later
in this section. You may also change the preferences after you have logged in,
by using the Options Tool (see Section
2.1.3), but those changes will only be
valid during that session: you lose the changes after exiting.
External Text Editor
MetaEdit+ uses its own internal text editor by default, but
you may use other text editors
instead. To set your
preferences:
1) | Choose
Options from the Startup
Launcher. |
2) | Check
the Use external Text Editor
option. |
3) | Enter
the command line for your editor as in
Figure 2-8. Include %1 to represent the
temporary file MetaEdit+ will create for your editor to work
with. |
By pressing the Test Text Editor
button you may test your setting. If proper path and program information is
given the editor you specified should now open. If your settings do not work,
MetaEdit+ will open its built-in editor instead.
To work properly with MetaEdit+, an external text editor
should open a new window each time the editor is called, and should not save
backup copies of the edited file (MetaEdit+ has no way of knowing about these,
and hence could not delete them). See the documentation that came with your text
editor for whether it already behaves correctly, or if there are options you can
pass on the command line to make it behave this way.
You may test your text editor behaviour by first opening
the editor from outside MetaEdit+, and then pressing the Test Text Editor
button. If a new instance of your text editor starts, and when you close it
there is no extra file left in your system’s default temporary directory,
your editor should work correctly. Otherwise, please see the manuals of your
text editor.
Finally, you must store the editor preferences by saving
them to the MetaEdit+ image. The image saving function is described later in
this section. You may also change the preferences after you have logged in, by
using the Options Tool (see Section
2.1.3), but those changes will only be
valid during that session: you lose the changes after exiting.

Figure 2-8. Settings for an external Text Editor.
Printer options
The
Printer page of the Startup Launcher’s
Options tool allows you to change the page layout and printer settings. Page
settings include margins, page styles and measurement units. Printer settings
allow you to choose how MetaEdit+’s will print. For more detailed
description see Section
4.2.
Timezone
Timezone lets you set the timezone where you are
running MetaEdit+. MetaEdit+ needs to have the correct time zone settings in
order to show times correctly, and to write files with the correct time. This is
especially important in the multi-user version, where some operations may depend
on file dates and times.
Make sure that all clients and servers have the correct
time zone settings, both at the operating system level and in MetaEdit+. For
Windows 95 and NT, and all Unix versions, the time zone needs to be set.
The meanings of the various settings are described below,
along with some example values.
 | Time
difference: What to add to GMT to get the local time, positive = East of
GMT, negative = West of GMT
|
 | DST
time offset: What extra to add during summer / daylight saving; normally 1
if there is any DST, or 0 if DST is not used.
|
 | Time
of day when DST starts or ends: Often sometime in the early morning. Note
you should give the time your clock shows then when DST is not in effect.
|
 | Day
of year when DST starts: Actually, this should be the last possible day when
DST can start in a non-leap year: we search back from this day for the day of
the week below. Days are entered as the number of days in the year so far: Jan 1
= 1, so Sept 30 = 273, Oct 31 = 304
|
 | Day
of year when DST ends: Calculated as above, March 31 = 90
|
 | Day
of week on which DST starts: Normally Sunday.
|
Save Image
To keep the above settings for the next time you start
MetaEdit+, they need to be saved. Note that like patches these preferences are
not stored into the database but into the program’s image file (mep3*.im).
To save preferences:
1) | Press
the Save Image button. You will be then asked for confirmation on storing
the MetaEdit+ image with these settings.
|
2) | Press
Yes. You will be then asked whether you want to continue after saving the
patched image
|
3) | Press
Yes and enter the name of the image to be saved: answer e.g.
‘mep30a’. Only use the name of the earlier image file if you have
already taken a copy of it as a backup. |
Now
the MetaEdit+ image is saved to that name, and the program will exit or
continue, depending on your answer to the first confirmation dialog. The saved
image now contains your preferences, and you should use that image in future
— if you gave a different name, you will need to use that name in
shortcuts or scripts used to start MetaEdit+.
Database operations
These are described briefly here: see the System
Administrator’s Guide for more information.
Create DB will create and log you into a new empty
MetaEdit+ repository, prompting you for its name, path, and the name and
password for the system administrator (which you can choose freely). Note that
this repository is totally empty: there are no
m
odels, no methods, and not even any projects. You
should thus normally create another non-sysadmin user, and at least one project.
In addition, you should choose which users have the right to metamodel, and set
appropriate fine tuning settings for the users: see the System
Administrator’s manual for more details. The new repository will be added
automatically to the database roots
file.
2.1.2 Launcher
 | See
also the Menu Reference, Section
7.2. |
The
main Launcher
is a tool for accessing the various
components of MetaEdit+ as well as for configuring the functionality of the
MetaEdit+ environment.
Figure 2-9 shows
a Launcher.

Figure 2-9. MetaEdit+ Launcher.
Accessing tools of MetaEdit+
As illustrated in the figure above, tools can be accessed from
the menus and buttons. Repository management, browsers, editors, and method
development tools have their own menus in the Launcher. The most common browsers
can also be opened with the Graphs and Types buttons. The
functionality of the browsers is explained in the next section.
Creating and opening projects
Once logged in you can
open existing
projects
or create new ones. To open projects select
Repository | Open Project... and choose one or more projects from the
list window.
If you want to create a new project choose
Repository |
New Project.... This choice opens a window asking a project name. Check with
your system administrator about project creation, access rights, and naming
conventions. Note that you must remember to set the new project as the default
(e.g. Type Browser, cf. Section
2.2.1)
in order to add graphs and related design information to it.
Saving your work
The
Commit and
Abandon buttons in the
launcher accept or reject the work you have done since the start of your current
transaction: a transaction is started when you log in, and when you commit or
abandon a previous transaction. You can also access these commands from the
Repository menu. Committing and Abandoning are explained in more detail
in Section
5.1.1.
Exiting MetaEdit+
To exit MetaEdit+,
simply close the
Launcher window. You will be asked whether you want a normal exit, or to exit
saving the image in a long transaction. These choices can be selected directly
from the menus as
Repository | Exit... or
Repository | Long
Transaction.... See Section
5.1.1
for more details. If uncommitted changes have been made, you will be prompted
whether to commit or abandon them during a normal exit.
If MetaEdit+ should be in a state where a normal exit is
not possible, you can try to perform an emergency exit
by
holding shift down while closing the Launcher. Note that some operating systems
where windows are closed from a menu require that you first open the menu
without shift, and press shift when selecting the close option from the menu.
Statistics
Repository | Statistics... opens
a window describing information about how many new objects have created during
the transaction, how many objects are changed, and how many repository objects
are currently loaded in the client. Other statistics include the size of the
image and memory usage.
Load More Repository
Because MetaEdit+ intelligently loads information from the
repository only as it is accessed, and flushes little-used objects when memory
is low to improve performance, some objects may not be found when accessed by
their type.
Repository | Load More Repository
allows you to load more of the repository contents, and
can be used if you think there should be an object available but MetaEdit+ does
not list it. Another way is to access the object by following links from objects
already loaded, e.g. opening graphs or property dialogs.
In general, searching for design data by type will only
show that data that has already been read from the repository (all graphs in a
project and their immediately contained objects, roles and relationships are
read automatically when the project is opened). Searching for data by following
links, e.g. explode or properties, is the preferred method, as it is always
possible to follow these links in full. Especially at the start of a session,
searches by type on data other than graphs is likely to miss many objects, as
they have not yet been loaded.
Options
The Launcher allows you to configure the MetaEdit+ environment
via the
Repository | Options menu, which opens an Options Tool, described
in the next
section.
2.1.3 Options Tool
The Options Tool is a notebook
(
Figure 2-10) with pages in which each
page allows you to configure different environment settings or perform various
special actions.
Below the notebook pages with user-specific options
(Preferences and System pages) the options tool include two extra buttons: the
Save as Defaults button saves the changed
preferences and
Restore Defaults retrieves the
saved default settings for the current user.
Preferences settings
The
Preferences page
(
Figure 2-10) lets you change
relationship creation and object deletion settings:

Figure 2-10. Options Tool: Preferences page.
1) | First
object always in first role
defines whether the order of objects
is taken into account during relationship creation. For example when creating an
inheritance relationship in an object diagram MetaEdit+ asks which object is in
the superclass role and which is in the subclass role. By selecting First object
always in first role MetaEdit+ assumes that the object which was selected first
(or the row object in a Matrix Editor) is in the first (superclass) role and
therefore no longer asks about the roles. This option is especially useful when
the method used has directed relationships, e.g. data flows and message
passing. |
2) | Open
toolbar by default allows you to choose whether you want the toolbar for
selecting the method element type to be created to open with editors. Type
selections can always be made from the editors’ Types
menu. |
3) | Automatically
delete unused objects. MetaEdit+ allows you to choose
a policy for deletion
operations,
that decides what to do when the user is deleting the last representation of an
object in a graph, and the object is not involved in any relationships in that
graph. This affects the functionality of all tools through which you can delete
design information. Thus, when you use delete functions you should be aware of
the currently selected
policy. |
 | Never:
deletes only the representation and the concept remains part of the graph. This
allows you to reuse it later on with the ‘add existing’ function.
The object will still be visible in reports and browsers on this graph, and for
new representations of this
graph. |
 | Ask
for each: asks via a dialog each time you delete a representation, whether
you want to remove the concept from the graph as
well. |
 | Always:
removes the concept from the graph when the last representation of the concept
is deleted. This helps ensure that reports and browsers show the same objects as
are visible in tools. The object is however no longer available from that
graph. |
| To
delete representations of a graph use the Delete Representations...
operation from a Type or Graph Browser: to avoid multiple dialogs you will
be prompted whether you want to temporarily change the setting, if your default
is Ask for
each. |
| Note
that these settings do not affect relationships and roles: these are always
deleted with their last representation. |
System settings
The
System page
(
Figure 2-11) lets you change the tool
functionality related to window appearance and dialog behaviour:

Figure 2-11. Options Tool: System page.
1) | Prompt
for window area determines whether you are prompted for the position and
size of windows when they are opened. If so, an empty rectangle appears first,
and you can position its top left corner with the mouse, then click and drag to
move the bottom right corner to set the size. If not, the window opens straight
away centred on the current cursor
position. |
2) | Automatically
answer dialogs defines how list dialogs behave
depending on how many items they
contain: |
 | Never
tells the system never to automatically answer a list dialog, and thus show even
empty dialogs. With this option the user can see all selection dialogs and get
all information about the tool functions.
|
 | Empty
automatically answers list dialogs containing no items, normally abandoning
the current action.
|
 | One
Item automatically selects and accepts the item in list dialogs with only
one item available.
|
3) | Diagram
pop-up menu selects first allows you to choose whether clicking with the
right mouse button over an unselected element in the Diagram Editor first
selects that element, then opens its pop-up menu. If this option is not chosen,
clicking with the right mouse button anywhere in the Diagram Editor will open
the pop-up menu for the already selected element: to open the pop-up menu for a
different element you must first select that element with the left mouse button
and then open the pop-up menu with the right mouse
button. |
Paths
The
Paths page
(
Figure 2-12) lets you choose a browser
for reading the manual and choose an external Text Editor instead of using
MetaEdit+'s built-in Text Editor:

Figure 2-12. Options Tool: Paths page.
1) | Set
Help Path allows you to define
the browser application that will be used for viewing the manual, the root path
to the manual directory, and various options for how these will be combined to
form a command string, which MetaEdit+ will send to be executed by your
operating system.
|
2) | Use
external Text Editor allows you
to use other Text Editors than that built in to
MetaEdit+. |
| Note
that changes in these preferences with Options Tool can not be stored and thus
they are in force only until you exit MetaEdit+. To save these browser and text
editor preferences, set them from the Startup Launcher’s Options
button before logging in. This function is described in detail in Section
2.1.1. |
Printer page
The Printer page of the Options tool allows you to
change page and printer settings:
1) | Page
Setup allows you to set margins, page styles and measurement units. For a
more detailed description see Section
4.2.1. |
2) | Printer
Setup allows you to choose one of MetaEdit+’s built-in printer
drivers. For a more detailed description see Section
4.2. |

Figure 2-13. Options Tool: Printer page.
User settings
The
User page
(
Figure 2-14) includes user-related
settings:

Figure 2-14. Options Tool: User page.
1) | Change
User Name allows you to change the name of the current
user. |
2) | Change
Password allows you to change the password for the
current user. A password must be at least four characters and contain at least
one letter. Passwords are case
sensitive. |
| Note
that changes in the user name and password must be saved to the repository
similarly to other information. Therefore, be sure that you press Commit
in the Launcher to save changes. If other users have changed their user names or
passwords at the same time, MetaEdit+ will inform you that it is not possible to
obtain a lock for user names or passwords. You should then wait until the lock
is available and
retry. |
3) | Fine
Tuning allows you to optimise the performance of memory management and
repository operations. The predefined values are optimised to give good
performance over a wide range of use patterns and hardware / software
configurations, so normally you should not change these values. Fine tuning is
explained in more detail in the System Administrator’s
Guide. |
Repository settings
The Repository page allows the user to view settings
concerning the repository: many operations here can only be performed by the
system administrator.
Check Repository reports on types which do not have
complete specifications, e.g. do not have identifying property, symbol, etc. The
incomplete types are reported in a list dialog, from which they can be selected
for editing.
Metamodellers shows if the user has metamodelling
rights. The system administrator can specify which users have the right to
metamodel. This includes not only using the features of Method Workbench version
of MetaEdit+ to create and modify types, but also the metamodelling features of
the standard version of MetaEdit+: changing symbols, property dialogs, and
saving reports.
The system administrator can also set the security level
for metamodelling. Exclusive means that the metamodeller is the only user in the
repository, and single that there can be only one metamodeller in the repository
at a time, but any number of simultaneous non-metamodelling users. The settings
for the repository
are explained in more detail in the
System Administrator’s Guide.