Assembly editor for business services

The WebSphere® Integration Developer's assembly editor lets you build applications by assembling the Service Component Architecture (SCA) components.

The assembly editor works with the following views:

See these related links at the end of the topic:

  • Tutorials to learn how to use the assembly editor
  • Samples to see how the assembly editor is used to build applications
  • Cheat sheets to try working with the assembly editor

Editor view

The Editor view is a part of the Business Integration perspective. When you open a module assembly with the assembly editor, you can visually compose the integrated application by adding components and connecting them with wires in the Editor view. Here is an image of a module assembly that is opened in the Editor view:

Editor view of the assembly editor

The modeled application is also referred to as the assembly diagram. The Editor view has a canvas where you create the assembly diagram. The following image shows the canvas:

assembly editor canvas

There is a palette where you can pick an element and add it to the canvas. The following image shows the palette with its four groups of elements:

assembly editor palette

The four groups of elements in the palette are:

  • Business service components

    These components will have implementations to provide the business logic that operates on data.

    The component (with no implementation type) in the palette, component (with no implementation), can be used when you want to create a new component but do not know which type of implementation will be used for it. Later, you can specify the implementation type and generate its implementation.

    The Java™ component in the palette, Java component in the palette, will be implemented as a Java class. It supports both WSDL type interfaces and Java type interfaces. It is the only component type that supports Java type interfaces.

    Other components include process, human task, state machine, and so forth. Hover help is available for each element. For more information on each type of component, see related concepts.

  • Import, export, and standalone references

    These elements provide access to services and they do not have any implementations. See "Business services: Components and modules" topic under related concepts for more information.

  • Interface map and selector

    These elements are special components that do not have "business logic" implementations. Interface map contains "mapping" logic for interface operations. Selector provides "routing" logic to invoke required services. See related concepts for more information on these components.

  • Wire

    This is used to assemble components into an integrated application by identifying target services.

See "Business services: Components and modules" under related concepts for more information on these elements.

Properties view

When working with the assembly editor, you use the Properties view to modify properties of the selected element on the canvas. The following image shows the Properties view displaying the properties of a selected component on the canvas:

Properties view of the assembly editor

Note: Context-sensitive help is available for the fields and controls in the Properties view. Use the Tab key to focus on the field or button and then press F1 (for Linux®, press Ctrl+F1) to display the help text.

The component properties are grouped into Description, Details, and Implementation:

  • Description properties include information such as the name of the component and its location. The display name is not used in the assembly diagram, but it is used in some runtime processes. If you leave the Synchronize with the name field box selected, the name and the display name will remain the same.
  • Details properties are for component's interfaces and partner references. A tree view lists all the interfaces and references; select one of them to display its properties in a Details page, a Qualifiers page, and an Event Monitor page. The following image shows the details properties of a selected interface:

    Details properties page

    See related concepts for more information on qualifiers and event monitoring.

  • Implementation properties

    Depending of the type of implementation that the component has, there may be different pages of implementation properties. Use the F1 key to get additional help on the properties.

    Binding properties

    For imports and exports, there are binding properties (instead of implementation properties). Here is an example of the Properties view showing the binding properties for an import:

Binding page

Outline view

The Outline view works with the resource that is opened in the Editor view. The Outline view operates in two modes: Show Outline, which is a tree view, and Show Overview, which is a graphical view.

Outline view in Show Outline mode

The Outline view in the Show Outline mode, displays all the elements in the assembly diagram that is open in the Editor view. When you click on an element in the Outline view , the Editor view and Properties view are synchronized to show the selected element. Here is an image showing the Outline view in the Show Outline mode:

Outline view

You can invoke actions from the elements in the Outline view; select an element and right-click to see the actions that are available. For the module, there is an Add action that lets you add artifacts to the assembly diagram that is open in the Editor view. The following image shows the Add menu:

Add Node action from the Outline view

Outline view in Show Overview mode

Click the Show Overview button, Show Overview button, on the top right corner of the Outline window to change the view into a graphical view of the assembly diagram that is open in the Editor view. The complete assembly diagram is displayed as a miniature model in the Outline view. The grey box is the part of the assembly diagram that is visible in the Editor view. Use your mouse to drag the grey box to the part of the assembly diagram that you want to see in the Editor view. This is an easy way for you to shift the Editor view to the part of the diagram that you are interested in. Here is an example of a wiring diagram displayed in the Outline view:

Wiring diagram displayed in the Outline view

Problems view

Use the Problems view to help you debug errors. For example, clicking on an error for some component in a module assembly will open the assembly diagram in the Editor view with the component that has the error selected. Here is the Problems view:

Problems view

Related concepts
Cheat sheets
Business services: Components and modules
Business processes
Human tasks
Business rules
Business state machines
Interface maps
Selector
Related tasks
Business services: Opening a module assembly
Business services: Working with implementations

Related information

Assembly editor keyboard shortcuts
Tutorial: Wire components using the assembly editor
Samples: Assembly editor for business services

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