Up Previous Next Title Page Index Contents

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.
Patches are available from the web site of MetaCase Consulting, http://www.metacase.com.

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 models, 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.

 The policies are:
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.

Up Previous Next Title Page Index Contents