### Method Configurations Overview

Eclipse Process Framework Composer ships with a lot of content out of the box. It includes the OpenUP framework and various plug-ins extending OpenUP/Basic with domain-specific additions. No organization or project requires all of this documentation all at once, but would work with a selection of specific subsets.

Eclipse Process Framework Composer (EPF Composer) manages for that purpose so-called method configurations, which allow you to specify working sets of content and processes for a specific context, such as a specific variant of the OpenUP framework that you want to publish and deploy for a given software project or as a foundation for a development organization. All content and processes in EPF Composer are organized in method plug-ins, which are organized into method packages. A method configuration is simply a selection of the method plug-ins and packages.

You create and specify a configuration using the configuration editor depicted in the figure above. You could start creating your own method configuration by copying one of the configurations that ship with EPF Composer and modify it to fit your specific needs. You can add or remove whole method plug-ins as well as make selection with each plug-in by checking or un-checking packages.

You can use the resulting configuration as your working set for your EPF Composer work. The actual content of the configuration, i.e. the included method content and process elements are always accessible in the Configuration view. Use the combo box in the toolbar to select the currently used method configuration.

### Publishing Overview

Method configurations are the basis for publishing method content and processes. A published configuration is an html Web site that presents all the method content and processes of the method configuration in a navigable and searchable way. It uses the relationships established during method content and process authoring to generate hyperlinks between elements as well as provides tree browsers based on the configuration view and user-defined categorizations of the content. The figure below shows an example of the published 'Classic RUP' method configuration.

For publishing simply create and select a configuration. The publication wizard will do the rest for you and only publish content that is part of the method configuration. It will also automatically adopt content to the configuration such as removing references of method content elements to elements outside of the configuration or removing activities from your processes that only contain work defined outside of the configuration set. Hence, publishing will only include the content that you really need. You can always preview a published configuration using EPF Composer's browsing perspective.