This topic tells how to start developing applications
with EGL Rich UI.
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 . 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.
Setting the initial Rich UI preferences
To
avoid confusion as to which versions of your handlers and libraries
are available during debugging sessions, you can ensure that those
EGL parts are generated whenever they are saved. Alternatively, you
may want to avoid the time spent on repeated generations, especially
if the EGL parts include many lines of code.
If you are going
to work primarily with Rich UI, begin your work by ensuring that handlers
and libraries are always generated:
- Click . The Preferences dialog is displayed.
- Expand EGL and click Generation.
The Generation pane is displayed.
- Ensure that the following check boxes are selected:
- If necessary, invoke a build before generating output
- Handler
- Library
- Deployment Descriptor
- Click OK
For additional details on preferences, see Rich
UI Preferences.
Rich UI has several preferences, which
you can see as follows:
- Click -> .
- At the Preferences dialog, expand EGL and
click Rich UI.
Two Rich UI Preview preferences
are available:
- The first preference (Automatically refresh when source
is modified) is the auto-refresh preference that affects
the behavior of the Link Preview with Editor button,
as described earlier
- The second (Show browser version warning) prevents the
development environment from checking whether you are using Internet
Explorer version 7, which has greater support for Rich UI than does
earlier versions of the same software. If checking occurs and you
are using Internet Explorer version 6, for example, you will repeatedly
get a warning message. You can stop the message from reappearing either
by clicking a checkbox when responding to that message or by deselecting
a checkbox at the preference page.
Two
Application Generation preferences
are available:
- First, you select one of two generation modes:
- Development mode is appropriate as you create your application.
The generated output includes debugging information. The output can
include multiple files unless you specify otherwise in the next preference.
- Deployment mode is appropriate when you are ready to deploy your
application. The generated output is a single HTML file that is as
efficient as possible.
- The second preference (Deploy application as a single
file) causes generation of a single file even when you
are generating in development mode.
A set of
Proxy Settings preferences
are appropriate if you access the Internet by way of a proxy server.
To see whether you need to set the preference, check whether your
browser is accessing the Internet by way of a proxy server; and if
so, copy the address:
- If you are using Internet Explorer, click Tools -> Internet
Options -> Connections -> LAN
Settings, and (if the checkbox is selected for a proxy
server) copy the address and port.
- If you are using Mozilla Firefox, click Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Settings.
The detail of interest is at the Connection Settings dialog.
If the checkbox is selected for manual proxy configuration, copy the
HTTP proxy address and related port number, as well as the address
specified for no proxy.
If your browser includes no proxy information but can
access websites that are external to your organization, ignore the
preferences for Proxy Settings.
To set
a proxy, specify values for Proxy and Port.
Also, you will probably want to avoid using a proxy when accessing
web pages served from your own machine. The default address specified
in the field Do not use a proxy for ( address localhost,
127.0.0.1) is appropriate in most cases. For further details
on proxy settings, contact your system administrator.
Creating your first Rich UI project
When
you want to work outside of the Rich UI samples project, do as follows:
- Click . 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 compatibility issues
Here are
the major compatibility issues: