Workspace Explorer

Workspace Explorer provides an overview of the current workspace and displays the composition of the current project in that workspace.

Current Project

Before you can do any work in a workspace you must create one or more projects. One of these projects must be selected as the current project.

The current project is a very important property in the DataFlex Studio. It specifies the project that you are currently working on. This project must belong to the current workspace. The current project gives the Studio a 'context'. Below is a description of how the current project affects different parts of the Studio:

When you compile a project in the Studio it is the current project that is compiled; When you run a project it is the current project that is run; When you are editing code, the Code Sense feature will apply information that is mined from source files belonging to the current project; the Visual Designer applies class definitions from the current project to know how to model objects; etc.

If your workspace contains more than one project then you can change which is the current project by:

Selecting a project from the Current Project combo list in the Workspace Explorer.
Selecting a project from the project drop down list in the Debug toolbar.
Choose Select Current Project from the Project menu.
Click the Projects item in the Studio Dashboard

When you create a new project then that project becomes the current project for your workspace.

For more information see: Create New Project

Project Composition

The Workspace Explorer's treeview control displays the composition of component files for the current project. The component files are grouped by component category. Expand the project tree item to review the component categories belonging to your project.

For Windows applications the categories can be:

Views
Reports
Dialogs
Business Processes
Data Dictionaries
Other Files

For Web applications the categories can be:

Web Views
Web Modal Dialogs
Web Components
Data Dictionaries
Other Files

Expand each category tree item to review the list of component files in that category. The component files that are listed under each category may further be grouped according to the file's location. i.e. if you are utilizing sub-directories to group your project's source code then this sub-directory grouping will be reflected in the treeview.

For further information refer to Sub-Directory Support and Component Files.

Determining a File's Component Category

For a file to be listed under one of the project's component categories there must be a use statement somewhere in one of the project files that reference it. The category it belongs to is determined by the class of the outer level object inside that file. For example, if the outer level object in File A is a dbView object, then that file is categorized as a view . In the case of Data Dictionary components, it is the outer level class declaration that is inspected.

If a file that belongs to a project does not contain any categorized object or data dictionary class, then it is not listed in Workspace Explorer's project composition.

Other Files

The "Other Files" tree item lists the remaining source files, from the current workspace, that are used by the current project.

Expanding the "Other Files" tree item displays the list of files. The files are grouped according to the file's location. i.e. if you are utilizing sub-directories to group your project's source code then this sub-directory grouping will be reflected in the treeview. This is the same grouping that is applied to the component category branches discussed above. For further information, refer to Sub-Directory Support.

Context Menu Operations

Workspace Explorer can be used to perform various operations on tree items via it's context menu.