Overview of Relationship Designer

Relationship Designer is a graphical development tool for creating and modifying relationship definitions. A relationship definition establishes an association between two or more participants. You create a relationship definition by specifying the participants in the relationship and defining the data source and other properties associated with each participant.

This section covers the following topics to introduce you to Relationship Designer:

Starting Relationship Designer

To launch Relationship Designer, do one of the following:

Important:
For Relationship Designer to be able to access relationships stored in System Manager, Relationship Designer must be connected to an instance of System Manager. The preceding steps assume that you have already started System Manager. If System Manager is already running, Relationship Designer will automatically connect to it.

Working with projects

System Manager is the only tool that interacts with the server. It imports and exports entities (relationships, maps) between InterChange Server and System Manager projects. Various tools, such as Relationship Designer, connect to System Manager and view, edit, and modify these entities on a project basis.

A project is simply a logical grouping of entities for managing and deployment purposes. Once entities are deployed to InterChange Server, the project they originated from no longer has any meaning.

System Manager allows you to create multiple projects. Before you can work on a relationship, you must select which project the relationship is in.

Steps for selecting a project

To select a project to work with, perform the following steps:

  1. From the File menu, select Switch to Project.
  2. In the Switch to Project submenu, select the name of the project.

Result: You can now work with the relationships in that project. Before you can switch to yet another project, you need to save the relationships you modified in the current project.

Figure 112 shows the Switch to Project option for browsing a project.

Figure 112. Browsing a project

When Relationship Designer establishes a connection to System Manager, it obtains a list of business objects that are defined in the current project. This list assists you with defining participants.

If you add or delete a business object using Business Object Designer, System Manager notifies Relationship Designer, which dynamically updates the list of business object definitions.

Layout of Relationship Designer

In the Relationship Designer window, a list of relationship definitions stored in the current project appears on the left side. In this relationship definition list, the contents of each relationship definition appear in a hierarchical format similar to the Windows Explorer. You can expand the relationship name by clicking on the plus symbol (+) beside its name to see a list of its participant definitions, participant types, and associated attributes. Figure 113 shows a relationship definition list.



Figure 113. Relationship definition list

The Participant Types window shows a list of available data types in the current project that you can associate with a participant.

Figure 114 shows the main window of Relationship Designer, with both the Relationship Definition list and the Participant Types window.

Figure 114. Relationship Designer main window

Customizing the main window

Relationship Designer allows you to customize its main window by:

Selecting windows to display

When you first open Relationship Designer, only the relationship definition list displays in the main window. The Participant Types window does not display. You can customize the appearance of the main window with options from the View pull-down menu. Table 82 describes the options of the View menu and how they affect the appearance of the Relationship Designer main window.

Table 82.

View menu options for main window customization
View menu option Element displayed
Participant Types The Participant Types window displays
Toolbar The Standard toolbar, which provides the main functionality for Relationship Designer
Status Bar A single-line pane in which Relationship Designer displays status information

Tip: When a menu option appears with a check mark to the left, the associated element displays. To turn off the display of the element, select the associated menu option. The check mark disappears to indicate that the element does not currently display. Conversely, you can turn on the display of an undisplayed element by selecting the associated menu option. In this case, the check mark appears beside the displaying element.

Floating a dockable window

Relationship Designer supports the following features of the main window as dockable windows:

Tip: By default, a dockable window is usually placed along the edge of the main window and moves as part of the main window. When you float a dockable window, you detach it from the main window, allowing it to function as an independent window. To float a dockable window, hold down the left mouse button, grab the border of the window and drag it onto the main window or desktop.

Using Relationship Designer functionality

You can access Relationship Designer's functionality using any of the following:

Relationship Designer pull-down menus

Relationship Designer provides the following pull-down menus:

The following sections describe the options of each of these menus. Keyboard shortcuts are available for some of these options, as indicated.

Functions of the File menu

The File pull-down menu of Relationship Designer provides the options shown in Table 83. Except for the Switch to Project option, all File menu options affect objects in the current project.

Table 83.

File menu options in Relationship Designer
File menu option Description For more information
New (Ctrl+N) Creates a new relationship definition "Creating a relationship definition"
Switch to Project (Ctrl+S) Lists other projects "Working with projects"
Save Saves the current relationship definition to a file "Creating a relationship definition"
Save All Saves all open relationship definitions N/A
Add Participant Definition Adds a new participant definition to the current relationship definition "Creating a relationship definition"

Functions of the Edit menu

The Edit pull-down menu of Relationship Designer provides the following options:

Functions of the View menu

The View pull-down menu of Relationship Designer displays the following options:

For information on the View menu options that control display, see "Selecting windows to display".

Tools menu functions

The Tools pull-down menu of Relationship Designer provides options to start each of the WebSphere InterChange Server tools:

Help Menu functions

Relationship Designer provides a standard Help menu with the following options:

Context menu

The Context menu is a shortcut menu that is available, by right-clicking from numerous places. A menu opens that contains useful commands, which change depending on the location you click.

Relationship Designer Standard toolbar

Relationship Designer provides a Standard toolbar for common tasks you need to perform. This toolbar is dockable; that is, you can detach it from the palette of the main window and float it over the main window or the desktop.

Tip: To identify the purpose of each toolbar button, roll over each button with your mouse cursor.

Figure 115 shows the Relationship Designer Standard toolbar.

Figure 115. Relationship Designer Standard toolbar

The following list provides the function of each Standard toolbar button, left to right:

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