SEDRIS Focus

Users Guide

Version 4.1.4.2


Table of Contents:

  1. Introduction
  2. Menus
  3. Toolbar
  4. Keyboard Shortcuts
  5. A note about link objects
  6. Included Tools
  7. Running a Tool on a Transmittal
  8. Runtime Variables - (C API ONLY)
  9. Bug Reports and Feedback



Introduction

The Focus application is useful for examining, editing, and correcting SEDRIS Transmittal Format (STF) files (also called SEDRIS transmittals). Focus can also run other SEDRIS-based tools, such as Depth, Syntax Checker, Rules Checker, and Model Viewer, as well as read their error reports. This release has been tested on Linux and Windows and is compatible with SEDRIS 4.1.x, DRM 4.1.0, EDCS 4.4.0, and SRM 4.1.0. The following image and text describes some of the important parts of the main Focus window. The numbers in red correspond to the numbered comments below.

  1. A transmittal's structure will be displayed in the Tree View. Objects that appear gray are ITR (Inter-Transmittal Reference) objects, and do not reside within the transmittal that was opened through the GUI.
  2. As objects in the transmittal are selected by clicking on them, their fields are displayed in the right side of the view.
  3. The path to the transmittal in the currently selected view is displayed on the main window title bar.
  4. The Toolbar has buttons for editing and browsing transmittals. The Toolbar can be dragged to any side of the View Area or can be a floating window. Additionally, some of the Toolbar functionality is available via a right-click popup menu in the Tree View and also in the Edit Menu.

Menus

File Menu

Open Transmittal

Open a transmittal using the File->Open Transmittal menu option. Shortcuts for opening recent transmittals are available under File->Recent Files. The number of shortcuts saved can be specified in the Edit->Preferences->System pane.

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Open Transmittal Read Only

Open a transmittal using the File->Open Transmittal Read Only menu option. Same as Open Transmittal but when opened in read only mode, the transmittal cannot be edited. Shortcuts for opening recent transmittals are available under File->Recent Files. The number of shortcuts saved can be specified in the Edit->Preferences->System pane.

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Recent Files

By hovering the mouse cursor over the Recent Files menu item a sub-menu will pop up and display a number of recently opened or created transmittal files. Clicking on one of these will re-open that transmittal, in the same mode (Read Only or Editable), in a new view. The number of recent transmittals saved can be specified in the Edit>Preferences->System pane.

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New Transmittal

When you create a new transmittal a default transmittal displayed. It contains only a <Transmittal Root>. This can be used as a workspace for building, cutting, and pasting objects to and from other transmittals.

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Close

Use the Close menu item when you want to close all open views of the currently selected Transmittal.

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Save

Use this menu item to save all recent edits on the current transmittal to the disk. This is useful when you want to run a tool such as Depth, Rules Checker, Syntax Checker, or Model Viewer on the transmittal that you've been editing. In previous versions of this tool you would have been required to close the transmittal and Focus to save your changes before running a tool.

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Save As

Use this menu item to save all recent edits on the current transmittal to the disk and change the name of the transmittal. Please note that you need to have at least 2.5 times the hard disk space as the size of the transmittal that you are saving to a different name.

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Exit

This item will close all transmittals and then shutdown the Focus application.

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Edit Menu

The Edit menu and the object right click menu are almost the same. Many of the options presented on the Edit Menu are also on the Toolbar.


New

Please refer to the description of this menu item under the Toolbar.

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Edit

Please refer to the description of this menu item under the Toolbar.

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Copy/Paste Object/Paste Tree

Please refer to the description of this menu item under the Toolbar.

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Delete

Please refer to the description of this menu item under the Toolbar.

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Find

Please refer to the description of this menu item under the Toolbar.

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Add Relationship

Please refer to the description of this menu item under the Toolbar.

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Remove Relationship

Please refer to the description of this menu item under the Toolbar.

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Preferences

The following features are user configurable through this menu item:


System Preferences

The System preferences are the default parameters for display and editing. Users can configure the display font size, look-and-feel, and the object editing display format among others.

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Viewer Preferences

The Viewer preferences specifies how the transmittal is traversed and displayed.

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Tools Preferences

The Tools Preferences can be used to either add new tools to Focus or modify current tools.

To add a tool, Click on the "New" button then specify an tool label, a short description to be displayed with the About button, the path to the executable, and any command line arguments you want to add.

The currently available argument types are:

An example of an Enumeration argument can be seen below.

Focus automatically builds a run window for each tool according to the options saved, as seen in the following example for running the Depth tool:

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Tools Menu

Depth

Please refer to the description of this menu item under Included Tools.

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Rules Checker

Please refer to the description of this menu item under Included Tools.

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Syntax Checker

Please refer to the description of this menu item under Included Tools.

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Model Viewer

Please refer to the description of this menu item under Included Tools.

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View FOCUS Error Report

Two of the tools, Syntax Checker and Rules Checker, will output an Error file by default. This file can be displayed by clicking the Show Errors button on the Results window. The Errors will then be displayed in a separate window. Clicking on an Error's Object ID button will select that object in the Tree View. Error files can be saved and viewed using this menu item.

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Bookmarks Menu

Bookmark

Please refer to the description of this menu item under the Toolbar.

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Bookmark Selection

This section of the menu shows all of the bookmarks for the currently selected transmittal. Select one to view it.

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Window Menu

Cascade

This option will rearrange the current windows into a cascade formation as seen below:

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Tile

This option will rearrange the current windows into a tile formation as seen below:

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Window Selection

This section of the menu shows all the windows currently in the Edit area. Select one to bring that window to the front if it's hidden and to expand the window if it's minimized.

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Help Menu

Users Guide

This document.

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Release Notes

The Release Notes document describes the specific related to each release of this application. For example it describes the basic capabilities of Focus, the platforms and libraries it's compatible with, and the changes made for this release and previous releases.

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About Focus

This is a short description of the Focus application, it's version number, and what SEDRIS library it's compatible with.

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Toolbar

The Toolbar has buttons for editing and browsing transmittals. The Toolbar can be dragged to any side of the application or can be a floating window. Additionally, some of the Toolbar functionality is available via a right-click popup menu in the Tree View and also in the Edit Menu.


Drag Handle

The drag handle allows the Toolbar to be repositioned in the application. The Toolbar can be attached to any side of the application, or be detached as a floating window.

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Aggregate/Component Object

Aggregate and Component Objects are tree navigation buttons for selecting the aggregate or component of the selected object in the tree hierarchy. For example if a <Geometry Model> is selected through the associated <Geometry Model Instance> then by clicking on the Aggregate button the aggregate of the <Geometry Model>, which is a <Model>, will be selected.

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Previous/Next Sibling

The Previous and Next Sibling buttons are tree navigation buttons for objects at the same level in the tree hierarchy under a single aggregate. For example if a <Table Property Description> has four direct component <Property Characteristic>s and the first one is selected, clicking on Next Sibling will move the selection to the next direct component <Property Characteristic>.

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Step Up/Down (in the Tree View)

The Step Up/Down buttons are the simplest navigation buttons and just step up or down in the Tree View.

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New

This item brings up a menu for selecting a new object to create.

The newly created object will be pasted as a component of the currently selected node. The object's fields will be initially set to default values.

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Edit

Edit allows an object's attributes to be edited. All object classes are supported. There are two views of the editing window:

The List view lists all the field values in a scrollable pane.

The Tabular view displays one field at a time and the user can select which to display by using the field tabs.

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Copy/Paste Object/Paste Tree

To make a copy of an object or tree, first select the object and then select Copy in either the Edit Menu, the right click menu, or the Toolbar. Once Copy is applied to the currently selected node, you can then select a node under which the copied node is to be created as a component. If you want to just copy the object by itself then just select Paste Object. If you want to copy the object and it's entire tree then select Paste Tree.

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Delete

Deletes the currently selected node, all relationships to / from it, and the tree below it.

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Add Relationship

This button allows you to add either a component or a one-way/two-way associate relationship. The currently selected node will automatically be added to the aggregate or from object area when you click on this button. It can be changed at will by selecting another node in the Tree View and then clicking on the button below the object ID area for the aggregate/from object marked 'Get currently selected node for this object'. To select a component/to object follow the same procedure for changing the aggregate/from object and then click on the button below the object ID area for the component/to object marked 'Get currently selected node for this object'. After you choose both objects, either a green checkmark or a red 'x' will show up to let you know if the relationship that you propose to create is valid or not.

To create a component relationship, between the two objects you have selected, click on 'Component' under the 'Relation Type'. To create an associate relationship, between the two objects you have selected, click on 'Associate' under the 'Relation Type'. If you select 'Associate' from the 'Relation Type' then the 'Direction Type' box becomes active. Once the 'Direction Type' box becomes active then you need to select whether you want a one-way or a two-way relationship.

If you see a green checkmark, you can click the 'Apply' button to create a relationship, or click the 'Close' button to cancel.

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Remove Relationship

This button allows you to remove either a component or a one-way associate relationship. The currently selected node will automatically be added to the aggregate or from object area when you click on this button. It can be changed at will by selecting another node in the Tree View and then clicking on the button below the object ID area for the aggregate/from object marked 'Get currently selected node for this object'. To select a component/to object follow the same procedure for changing the aggregate/from object and then click on the button below the object ID area for the component/to object marked 'Get currently selected node for this object'. Regarding removal of associate relationships, this is only a one-way removal. To remove a two-way association you need to remove both of the relationships separately.

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Find

Find allows an object to be selected and displayed in the view window by specifying either the object's complete Object ID,

or by specifying a DRM class type and finding the first object of that class in the tree hierarchy.

When using the DRM class type to search for objects, the Previous Type/Next Object of Type toolbar buttons become active to search forwards and backwards through the list of found objects matching the type specified.

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Find Previous/Next Object of Type

Once an object of a DRM class is found using the Find by DRM class type, the Previous and Next Type buttons will become active and when clicked will select and show the previous (or next) object of the same DRM class type in the tree. This feature always starts with the top-most object of the specified DRM class type in the tree.

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Bookmark

Objects can be bookmarked for easy reference. To bookmark an object, select the object in the Tree View and click the Bookmark tool on the Toolbar, the Edit Menu, or the right-click menu and then give it a name.

The bookmark name will appear under the Bookmarks menu for that transmittal. Selecting a bookmark from the list will cause that object to be selected and displayed in the Tree View.

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Focus

Focus simply scrolls the selected object back into the view window. It is useful for large transmittals where it is easy to lose sight of the selected item when scrolling through large tree structures.

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New/Delete View

There can be multiple views for one transmittal. Each view can display a different segment of the transmittal and have a different object selected. To open another view for the transmittal currently being displayed, hit the New View button on the toolbar. To delete the currently displayed view, use the Delete View button on the right side of the toolbar. If all the views for a transmittal are deleted, the transmittal will be closed. To close all the views associated with the currently selected one use the Close menu item in the File Menu.

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Keyboard Shortcuts

File Menu-----Alt + F
Open Transmittal-----Ctrl + O
Open Transmittal Read Only-----Ctrl + Shift + O
New Transmittal-----Ctrl + Shift + N
Close-----Ctrl + W
Save-----Ctrl + S
Edit Menu-----Alt + E
New-----Ctrl + N
Edit-----Ctrl + Enter
Copy-----Ctrl + C
Paste Component-----Ctrl + Shift + V
Paste Tree-----Ctrl + V
Delete-----Delete
Find-----Ctrl + F
Add Relationship-----Ctrl + L
Remove Relationship-----Ctrl + R
Preferences-----Ctrl + P
Tools Menu-----Alt + T
View FOCUS Error Report-----Ctrl + G
Bookmarks Menu-----Alt + B
Bookmark-----Ctrl + D
Window Menu-----Alt + W
Help Menu-----Alt + H

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A note about link objects

When you add a component or add a relationship, Focus will add the necessary link object and will notify you about what has been added. In the case where one of many link objects could be inserted, Focus will ask you to choose which one to insert. Link objects cannot be directly added or removed through Focus. The only way to add and remove link objects is to add or remove the objects that the link object is connecting.

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Included Tools

Focus includes four SEDRIS-based tools that can be run directly in the Focus interface from the Tools menu.

The tools included with Focus are:

Depth

Depth does a depth-first traversal of a transmittal.

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Rules Checker

Rules Checker checks a transmittal for compliance with constraints.

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Syntax Checker

Syntax Checker checks a transmittal for syntactical correctness.

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Model Viewer

Model Viewer allows you to view models and textures in a transmittal.

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Running a Tool on a Transmittal

A tool can be run on the currently selected transmittal by choosing the tool from the Tools menu. If an object is selected and the tool takes a start object as a parameter, the tool will be run on that object, otherwise, the tool will run on the Transmittal Root. A window will be displayed, presenting an About button which gives a short description of the tool, and inputs for any command-line parameters. The tool will be run in a separate process and the output will be displayed in a Results window. The tool may be terminated while running by clicking the Kill Process button on the Results window. Focus includes four SEDRIS tools: Depth, Syntax Checker, Rules Checker, and Model Viewer.

Shown below is the window for the Depth tool before it is run:

The following image shows the output window and the associated buttons:

Two of the tools, Syntax Checker and Rules Checker, will output an Error file. This file can be displayed by clicking the Show Errors button on the Results window. The Errors will be displayed in a separate window as shown below:

Clicking on an Error's Object ID button will select that object in the Tree View. From version 4.0.1.2 this button does not work for ITR objects. Error files can be saved and viewed using the Tools>View FOCUS Error Report option.

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Runtime Variables - (C API ONLY)

This section describes the following environment variables that are available for users to configure the SEDRIS runtime environment. The default values should be sufficient for most users:

Please refer to the SEDRIS documentation for more detailed information about these particular variables.

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Bug Reports and Feedback

Questions, comments, and bug reports should be sent to help@sedris.org.

If you are an associate, please send email to se-coders@sedris.org.

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Copyright © 2012 SEDRIS