Developer Studio interface

 is an Eclipse application, which uses perspectives to organize windows into layouts. In , you work with two perspectives:

• Developer perspective—Contains tabs and editors to find, create, and modify objects on s.
• Editor perspective—Contains only the tabs and editors you need when you are editing an object.

For more information, see Working-with-perspectives.

The following figure shows the Developer Perspective of .

 and the Developer perspective

The Developer perspective has several parts:

If you cannot find a tab, it might be minimized or closed. To open a minimized tab, click the Restore icon ( ) in the window margin. If the tab is closed, use the Window > Show View menu to open it.

 does not support large DPI fonts, which are configured in the Properties dialog box of Windows computers.

In the  user interface, tables often seem to have an empty column on their right side. This illusion occurs when the right column separator for the last data-filled column is visible. The separator enables you to resize the last data-filled column. You can drag the separator until the "empty" column is no longer visible.

Using the AR System Navigator

Use the AR System Navigator (see the following figure) to open object lists and create objects. 

AR System Navigator


The AR System Navigator contains a tree for each connected server. The following server icons signify information about the server: 

Server icons

For information about subadministrator access to objects, see Creating-a-Subadministrator-security-role. 

The AR System Navigator gives you access to:

• Working Lists—Lists of server objects that you use to complete an application development or maintenance task.
  Use the special Reserved Objects working list to access reserved objects. For information about object reservation, see Version-control-in-AR-System.
  For more information, see Creating-and-modifying-working-lists.
• Applications—Applications defined on the server.
  See Defining and managing an application.
• Packing Lists—Functional units that contain an administrator-defined grouping of information. For example, if an application contains ten forms, each form and its related workflow can be organized in its own functional unit, or packing list.
  See Creating-and-managing-packing-lists.

• All Objects—All of the object types that you can define in , for example, forms, active links, and so on.
  Double-click an item (such as Forms) to open an object list. From the object list, you can access the objects of that type.
  See Using the Outline tab below and Working-with-objects.

  Working lists, applications, and packing lists provide another way to access server objects found under All Objects. Using these containers can reduce the time to find objects that you need to access.

Using the Outline tab

The Outline tab displays a visual overview of the object in an editor. Use it to navigate within the editor. When you select an item in the outline, it is also selected in the editor and vice versa. 

When you are editing a form, the Outline tab contains the following icons:

• Show Tree Overview ()—Displays all of the fields (ordered by field ID) on the current form view in a tree format. 

• Show Table Overview ()—Displays all of the fields on the current form view in a table format. You can click on the columns to sort by field ID or by name.

• Show Fields Not in View ()—Displays fields that are not in the current or selected view including the fields that are not in any view. The fields created from this view are not present in any view. In Best Practice Customization mode, you can create or delete Field Overlay of these fields. You can also see such fields by choosing Form > Add/Remove Fields In View (they are listed in the left pane of the dialog box). See Including and excluding fields from form views.

• Show Zoom Overview ()—Displays a small picture of the form view with a gray box that you can move to focus the editor on a specific area of the form.

Outline tab with Show Tree Overview displayed 


Outline tab with Show Zoom Overview displayed 

You can view the list of all fields contained in all views of form. If you have created multiple views for a form, you can view a list of all fields contained in all forms. The Outline view also lists the fields that are not in view.

To view all fields in the Outline view

1. Open  in the Best Practice Customization mode.
2. Open the form from the Object List.
3. Select the Definitions tab.
   The Outline view lists the fields in all views of the selected form.

Using the Messages tab

When an editor is active, the Messages tab lists any warnings about the object that you are editing. They often note fields that must be completed before you can save the object. 

The tab also shows a count of all messages. If you minimize the Messages tab, the minimized icon shows the highest severity, and the counts are shown on a tool tip.

To fix a problem described in a warning

1. Double-click the message in the Messages tab.
   If the message is linked, the insertion point moves to the item in the object editor that you must change.

2. Fix the problem reported in the message.

   When you try to save an object and the  returns an error, that error is listed in the Messages tab, but it is not linked to the object in the editor.