Explore the user interface: basic navigation

The goal of this exercise is to switch between perspectives and see the features they provide.

1. The current perspective is displayed in the upper right-hand corner of the main toolbar. The 2 perspectives you will use most often are authoring and browsing. Click on the Open Perspective icon and note the other perspectives available through this menu.

    

   Open Perspective icon	Authoring Perspective indicator

 

2. You can also change perspectives by clicking on the > > symbol to the right of the perspective indicator. Try using this control to switch back and forth between perspectives.

 

3. Switch to the authoring perspective if you're not already in it. In the left-hand side of the main window you should see 2 panels with tree-navigators, one called Configuration and one called Library. If the Library panel isn't visible you should use the Window menu in the main toolbar and select Show view, then select Library. This control let's you show or hide the view panels.

 

4. Explore the library view. Note the library view is only available while you are using the authoring perspective. It is not accessible while you are in the browsing perspective. The library view shows you all method content in the current library. The highest level content unit is a plug-in. Plug-ins are represented by this icon:

    

   Click on some of the + symbols and explore content in the plug-ins. Note the + symbols become - symbols. Expanded tree nodes can be collapsed by clicking on the - symbols.

 

5. Drill down into the openup_basic plug-in as follows: expand openup_basic, then Method Content, then Content Packages, then architecture, then Tasks. The library view panel should look like this:

    

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6. Note that individual tasks are repsented by this icon:

    

   Double click on one of the tasks listed there. The task editor is displayed on the right of the screen. There are separate editors for the different types of content that you can create in a library. Each editor has a series of tabs and a number of form elements on each tab. You can find out more about these in the Create Method Content tutorial.

 

7. Click the Preview tab. A preview of an HTML page is displayed. This is what the selected element will look like in a published web site.

 

8. Switch to the browsing perspective. The configuration view is now displayed. The configuration view always has the same structure but the content changes based on which configuration is currently selected. Expand the Disciplines folder until you get to tasks and click on a task. The HTML preview of the selected item is shown on the right of the screen.

 

9. Switch configurations. The current configuration is displayed in the selection box below the main menu bar. Select a configuration from the drop down list. You will see the configuration view refresh when you do this.

 

10. Switch back to the authoring perspective. Expand the OpenUP plug-in as follows: openup_basic, then Processes, then Capability Patterns, then Basic Building Blocks. Capability patterns are represented by this icon:

     

    Note that not all plug-ins have capability patterns. Double-click on one of the capability patterns. The panel on the right side of the window shows the capability pattern editor and the properties view. You can find out more about these in the Working with Processes tutorial.