UBIK Studio Basics

UBIK^® Studio is the server application and administrative tool for creating and modifying UBIK^® object models. Transfer your entitiy-relationship-model into UBIK^® metaclasses and metaproperties and build up necessary relations. It is also the instrument of your choice to manage instances of metaclasses, edit their property values and create actual relations between instance objects. This section will provide you with more information on the user interface.

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UBIK^® metaclass

File:INSTANCE.png

UBIK^® instance

Prerequisites

Options

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UBIK^® Studio options

Locate and click the menu Edit->Options. Press the Apply or OK Button when you're finished changing the settings, or Cancel if you don't want your changes to be saved. The settings are user-specific and will be stored in your local windows user profile.

In the options you can configure your database connection by the following parameters

• DataBase: SQL database name
• DataSource: SQL server instance (specify a server via hostname, UNC, IP, ...)
• User: SQL user name
• Password: SQL user password

Take care that the specified SQL user has appropriate permissions on the database.

Additional options are

• LiveMode: True / False
• RecordLifeTime: Integer (default -1)

Working Area and Controls

The starting window is split into 3 parts, each .

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UBIK^® Studio

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UBIK^® Studio controls

The UBIK^® Studio provides a set of user controls for manipulating objects and data. Find a short list what each control is designated for

Control	Description
„Class Browser“	Navigate through the metaclasses and instances
„Class Details“	Design metaclasses
„Content Editor“	Create and edit instances
„Code Editor“	Implement customer specific functionality
„Relation Editor“	Relate objects and edit relational data
„Object Explorer“	Display and edit properties of objects (list style)
„Object Editor“	Graphical editor for changing object properties
„Workflow Designer“	Design customer specific workflows

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Each of the 3 areas can hold an arbitrary amount of controls, which provide different functionality for object creation/modification.

Clicking an empty tab strip in one of these areas will bring up a context menu, that allows you to create a new tabpage hosting one of the follwoing controls:

• ClassBrowser

Display and edit classes hierarchically

• Details

Show additional information for classes, such as attributes

• PropertyView

Display and edit object properties

• Who-Bert, the debugging opossum

Execute C# code using UBIK objects

• Designer

Display and edit properties and instances

• Events

Display and edit event-triggered code on UBIK classes

• Relation Editor

Display and edit relations and their content


Furthermore every control has it´s Views.

Editing objects in general

Basically there are various ways to edit objects in the UBIK^® database, each applicable for both, meta- and content objects. Use the following controls to edit

Property	Control
Basic properties	“Object Editor”, “Object Explorer”, “Content Editor”
Relational data	“Relation Editor”
Metaclass details	“Class Details”
Events / object methods	“Code Editor"

All controls require a similar workflow

1. Open the control
2. Set the object to be edited to the control via dragging the object and dropping it onto the control’s tab
3. The corresponding edit functionality will be available then

Metaclasses

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Create new metaclass

1. Create a new metaclass via „Derive new object“ from the context menu
2. Open the control “Object Editor”
3. Set the newly created metaclass to the control
4. Set name, description and namespace
5. Save the changes

Technical implementation

The system creates a new instance of “CUSTOMMETACLASS” and sets the “INHERIT” property to the metaclass the context menu was opened at. New derivates can be created for any system metaclasses as “BASECLASS”, “REFERENCE”, “SELECTIVELIST”, … etc.

Metaproperties

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Create new metaproperty

A new metaproperty can be created and automatically assigned to a metaclass via the “Create new metraproperty” workflow. This workflow guides the user through the creation and configuration procedure of a metaproperty and relates it to the selected metaclass.

1. Start Workflow “System / Create new metaproperty” from the context menu
2. Set at least name, description and data type
3. Change the metaproperty’s category if necessary
4. Save the changes
5. Optional configuration:

- Reference

- Selective list

- Unit item

- Format

- Validation flag

- Numer of index keys

- Default values

- Initial values

Technical implementation

Without the workflow the user has to complete the following steps:

Step 1: Create new metaproperty instance

1. Navigate to the metaclass “CUSTOMMETAPROPERTY”
2. Create a new instance
3. Set at least name, description and data type
4. Change the metaproperty’s category if necessary
5. Save the changes
6. Optional configuration:

- Reference

- Selective list

- Unit item

- Format

- Validation flag

- Numer of index keys

- Default values

- Initial values

Step 2: Relate the instance of metaproperty to a metaclass

1. Open the control “Class Details”
2. Set the designated metaclass to the control
3. Add the metaproperty either by dragging and dropping the metaproperty’s instance onto the metaclass or by clicking the Add metaproperty button button in the menu
4. By clicking on the Add metaproperty button button the user has to navigate through the hierarchy to the appropriate metaproperty

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