Main Page

Known Repositories

The main page contains a list of all repositories known in the current session. A repository may contain the data from an imported STEP-File or it may be a repository on a database containing data for many projects.

The first listed SystemRepository contains meta-data of the supported EXPRESS schemas and Mappings. The data in this repository is read-only. All other repositories contain application data which available for reading and writing.

Initially only the SystemRepository and the locally available repositories are "known" and listed here. Further repositories can be created or imported from STEP-files. In addition remote repositories can be linked and made available in this list of known repositories.

There are four columns in the repository list:

Active shows whether a repository is open or not. Initially all repositories except the SystemRepository are closed. By clicking on a check box you can open or close a repository. A repository can also be opened by entering it with a double click and proceeding to the Repository page.
Modified indicates if something in the repository was changed and not yet stored permanently. The modified flag is cleared automatically when the transaction is commited or aborted.
name and
location.

The name column lists the names of all repositories. The forth column shows the repository location. There are several types of repositories: linked, connected from a server and local. The type of a repository can be identified from its location. Usually, locations of remote repositories (from server) are written as URL-string. The locations of the local repositories are identifiedby the '<default>' prefix whereas the location of the linked repositories are specified by the path where they are placed originally.

Editing Line

The Editing line contains values which are required for operations on repositories. There is a combo box and two text fields in this line. Fields are aligned to repositories columns and have the same meaning except of the first combo box. In the text field which is bellow the name column you can specify repository name and the same for location field where the repository location is specified. It is essential to remember that these fields are used just with the buttons below. In the combo you can choose three kinds of repositories: default, specify and temporary. Defaultmeans that the name of the repository will be chosen from the imported or linked file. Default can not be used for creating repository because it has no name yet. Specify means that the specified name will be chosen for naming the repository instead of taking the name from the imported file or the linked repository. Temporary will create a repository which will be available just for the current session. It will be deleted automatically after exiting the program. Temporary repositories have their own marking &repositoryX, where X is a number of a temporary repository.

Buttons Row

There are seven buttons which operate on repositories: import, export, link,server, unlink, create and delete. Some words about every of them. Import button imports a physical file (usualy its extension is: .ph or .stp) into the local repositories. After you press the button, the open dialog opens and you can choose preferred file. Import takes values from edit line. Export button makes the same but in an oposite direction. It exports repository to a physical file. There is also the save dialog, where you can specify needed filename and path. Link repository does similar things as import, but instead of taking physical file it takes another repository. It's essential to know, that the linked repositories stay at their original place and are not transferred to the default location. Server opens the dialog where you can specify parameters for taking repository from sdai server. Specified parameters are server name, user name, password and port. After you specify these values and press search you will see the list of repositories available on the server and visible by this user. After that you can choose one and link. Unlink button serves for unlinking both linked and server repositories. If you do not unlink linked repository it will also appear the next time you start the application. If you link the repository as temporary, then there is no needed to unlink it. Create makes a new empty repository with the specified name and location. Delete will erase a repository. Be careful - operations on repositories are not in transaction. So if you delete a repository there will be no way back to restore it.

Transaction Row

There is one group with three radio buttons and two other buttons commit and abort. All these controls are operating on a transaction. By default when you start a transaction it is in the read-only mode, when you go forward and try to edit something, it automatically switches to a read/write mode. So, there is no need to change the transaction for you. But if you prefer to switch it by hand you can do this. Commit and abort is available only if data have changed. Commit will add all changes to repositories and abort will discard these changes.