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The Link Manager


The Link Manager manages endpoints and links in a system. The Link Manager handles the link file, containing information about the endpoints and links in a system. The syntax of the link file is described in The Link File.

For an overview of link concepts, see Link Concepts and Overview. In addition, the following concepts are used in the Link Manager:

Link Manager Window

The Link Manager's window is shown in Figure 143. The window title contains the name of the loaded link file, and is appended by an asterisk `*' if the link file is modified.

In the window, the endpoints in the system are presented graphically using icons. The links between the endpoints are represented as lines between them, with an arrow stating the direction of the link. The Link Manager can present different views of the endpoint/link information; these are described in Presentation Views and Link Trees.

Figure 143 : The Link Manager window

At the top of the drawing area, the name of the current link file is presented under a "Information from" heading. If several link files are merged, they are all listed here until the next Save operation. If a local link file is used (see Local Link File), both the master link file (read only) and the local link file are listed.

If the information in the Link Manager is not yet saved, "on-line editing" will be displayed to indicate that endpoints have been created in an editor or in the Organizer.

The main part of the drawing area displays all endpoints and links as link trees. Every endpoint is a root node, and the associated links and endpoints are added to that root. Link trees can be collapsed, and endpoints and links can be hidden.

Below the link trees, some statistics are presented under a "Statistics" heading. The number of endpoints and links is displayed, including the number of hidden endpoints and links, as in the following example:

Statistics:
10 endpoints (2 not shown)
4 links (1 not shown)

Endpoint Icons

The Link Manager uses the same icons for endpoints as the Entity Dictionary. See Entity Icons for more information.

The icons can have different layouts indicating the state of the associated endpoint:

Normal

The normal state of the icon. Information is not modified.

Invalid

An endpoint is marked invalid if, after a Check Endpoints operation, it is not present in the document where it was supposed to be.

Dirty

The endpoint is modified or newly created from an editor, but the link file is not yet saved.

Dashed

The endpoint is already displayed on a higher level in the same tree, or it belongs to the TO group after a Consistency Check.

The endpoints are added as new root symbols below the last link tree as they are created. The order of the icons can be changed by using the quick buttons Move Down and Move Up.

Presentation Views and Link Trees

The Link Manager has two main methods of displaying endpoints, using an Endpoint view or an Entity view. There is also a Consistency view, used for presenting the results after a consistency check has been performed (see Consistency Check). When there is no selection in the drawing area, the name of the currently displayed view is shown in the status bar.

In Endpoint view, a link tree looks like this:

Figure 144 : Link tree in Endpoint view

To the right of each endpoint icon, the following information identifying the endpoint is displayed (depending on the options set in Options > Endpoint):

For each link in a link tree, the name of the link is displayed above the endpoint information, in bold face. The link name display can be switched on or off by the menu choice Options > Link.

The link comment, if it is used, is shown directly below the link name, in italics. The comment display can be switched on or off by the menu choice Options > Link.

In Entity view, all endpoints representing the same entity are collected into one symbol, and the number of endpoints represented by that entity is presented to the right of the name of the entity, preceded by an asterisk `*'. Also, instead of displaying the filename the endpoint resides in, the scope the entity resides in is displayed. The scope is either a filename or a module. An example of an endpoint in Entity view:

Figure 145 : An entity in Entity view

Link Manager operations on endpoints also apply to entities. If there is a difference in the behavior of a menu choice depending on the view, this will be pointed out in the descriptions of the operations.

Double-Clicks

Double-clicking on an icon invokes the menu choice Show in Editor. In Entity view, if the selected entity corresponds to several endpoints, they will be selected one at a time for each double-click.

Menu Bar

This section describes the menu bar of the Link Manager window and all the available menu choices.

The menu bar contains the following menus:

File Menu

The File menu contains the following menu choices:

The menu choices are described in File Menu, except Print, which is described in The Print Dialogs in the SDL Suite and in the Organizer, and Merge, which is described below.

Merge

This menu choice opens an existing link file, and merges the contents of that file with the information already in the Link Manager. It works in a similar way to Open, but keeps the current endpoint and link information.

If two links are equal (i.e. they have the same source and destination endpoints and the same name) but they have different link comments, the new comment will consist of the old comments separated by a newline character.

Edit Menu

The Edit menu contains the following menu choices:

Highlight Endpoint

This menu choice highlights an endpoint. Highlighting an endpoint is the first step to replace an endpoint or create a link. The highlighting is presented as a frame around the highlighted endpoint.

The first time this menu choice is used, the selected endpoint will be highlighted. The second time this menu choice is used for the same endpoint the highlighting will be removed. There is at most one highlighted endpoint. If another endpoint already was highlighted, the highlighting is moved to the selected endpoint.

Replace Endpoint

This menu choice replaces an endpoint with another endpoint. This operation is useful if an endpoint has become Invalid and the user has found a replacement endpoint that all links should be moved to.

One endpoint is defined with the Highlight Endpoint menu choice, the other endpoint is defined by the selection.

All links going to or from the replaced endpoint will be updated to go to or from the other endpoint instead. If the replaced endpoint was invalid, the user is given the option to delete the replaced endpoint.

The following dialog appears:

Figure 146 : The Replace Endpoint dialog

Create Link

This menu choice creates a link between the highlighted endpoint and the selected endpoint.

One endpoint is defined with the Highlight Endpoint menu choice, the other is defined by the selection.

The Create Link dialog appears, see Figure 135.

Link Details

This menu choice displays information about the link above the selected endpoint; the name, the comment, and the direction of the link. All these attributes can be edited.

The following dialog appears:

Figure 147 : The Link Details dialog

The dialog works in the same way as the Create Link dialog, see Figure 135.

Clear Link

This menu choice clears (deletes) the link above the selected endpoint. Only the link will be cleared, not the associated endpoints. You will be asked to confirm or cancel the deletion.

View Menu

The View menu contains the following menu choices:

Expand

This menu choice expands the endpoint structure tree one level down for the selected endpoint. If any endpoints one level down are hidden, they will still be hidden after this operation. (Use the Filter menu choice to show or hide endpoints).

The menu choice is dimmed if:

Expand Substructure

This menu choice expands the endpoint structure tree the whole way down for the selected endpoint. If there is no selection, all endpoint trees will be expanded.

Collapse

This menu choice collapses the selected endpoint, i.e. the sub symbols are not shown after this operation. A collapsed endpoint has a small triangle drawn below the icon to indicate that it is collapsed. If there is no selection, everything will be collapsed.

Options > Window

This menu choice sets options for controlling the appearance of the Link Manager window.

The following dialog appears:

Figure 148 : The Window Options dialog

Options > Link

This menu choice sets options for controlling the appearance of links in the drawing area.

The following dialog appears:

Figure 149 : The Link Options dialog

Options > Endpoint

This menu choice sets options for controlling the appearance of endpoints in the drawing area.

The following dialog appears:

Figure 150 : The Endpoint Options dialog

Filter

This menu choice is used for filtering out endpoints and/or links which will not be shown. The filter is set in a modeless dialog, i.e. the Link Manager continues working without waiting for the dialog to be closed.

If an endpoint is hidden, all links associated to it will be hidden. If a link is hidden, the endpoints associated to it will still be visible.

The following dialog appears:

Figure 151 : The Filter dialog

Set Scale

Issues a dialog where the scale may be set.

Tools Menu

The Tools menu contains the following menu choices:

Search

This menu choice searches for a text string in endpoints or links.

The searching is based on ASCII character matching. All texts related to the endpoints and links are searched, i.e. endpoint types and names, link names and comments.

The search will start from the selected endpoint, or from the first endpoint if nothing is selected.

The following dialog appears:

Figure 152 : The Search dialog

Search Again

This menu choice searches again for the same text string as the last performed search.

The menu choice is dimmed if a search has not yet been done.

Consistency Check

This menu choice is used for checking the consistency between a group of documents (the FROM group) and another group of documents (the TO group).

In Entity view, there are two types of consistency checks to choose from. The following dialog appears:

Figure 153 : The Link Check/Entity Match dialog

The above dialog is not opened in Endpoint view, in which case a link check always is performed.

First, the documents in the FROM group must be selected. The following dialog appears:

Figure 154 : Selecting the FROM group

In the list of Organizer documents and modules, one or several documents must be selected. Selecting/deselecting a module will select/deselect all the documents in that module. Selecting/deselecting an SDL system will select/deselect all documents in that system. Individual documents in the module/system can then be selected/deselected without affecting the other documents.

When all FROM documents are selected, the Continue button is used to close the dialog and continue to the next dialog.

Then, the documents in the TO group must be selected. The following dialog appears:

Figure 155 : Selecting the TO group

The list of Organizer documents and modules works in the same way as when selecting the FROM documents. When all TO documents are selected, the Check button is used to close the dialog and start the consistency check operation.

The result of the consistency check is presented as a special view in the drawing area. This Consistency view only shows endpoints/entities from the two defined groups of documents. Endpoints/entities from the FROM group are shown in the normal way, and endpoints/entities from the TO group are shown as Dashed symbols.

The Consistency view is only showing links going from the FROM group of entities/endpoints to the TO group. After a link check, the links shown are the "real" links, as defined by the user. After an entity match, the links shown are only temporary links created by the Link Manager to indicate matching entities. The link name for such links are "Matching" and the link comment is "(Temporary link)".

By selecting Endpoint or Entity view in Options > Window, the view will return to the selected normal view. By pressing the quick button Show Endpoints or Entities, the view will return to the previously used view.

Check Endpoints

This menu choice checks if there are endpoints in the Organizer or in the editors that do not exist in the Link Manager, or if there are invalid endpoints in the Link Manager. This menu choice could be used to remove any inconsistencies between the document endpoints in the system and the information in the Link Manager.

The information in the saved files is used for the checking, so if there are unsaved changes in an editor, these will not be taken into account in the checking. If there are any documents in the Organizer which have not been saved, the following dialog appears:

First, the Organizer and all documents in the system are checked. The following dialog appears:

Figure 156 : The first Check Endpoints dialog

In the upper multiple selection list, all endpoints that were found in the Organizer, but do not exist in the Link Manager, are listed. In the lower multiple selection list, all endpoints that were found in the documents belonging to the system, but do not exist in the Link Manager, are listed. It is possible to select one or more of the endpoints in the lists, with the purpose of adding them to the Link Manager.

Then, the endpoints in the Link Manager are checked. If any non-existing endpoints are found, they will be marked as Invalid. The following dialog appears:

Figure 157 : The second Check Endpoints dialog

In the upper multiple selection list, all Link Manager endpoints which reside in files that have been deleted are listed. In the lower multiple selection list, all Link Manager endpoints that no longer are present in the files they are supposed to be in are listed. It is possible to select one or more of the endpoints in the lists, with the purpose of deleting them from the Link Manager.

Show in Editor

This menu choice will show the symbol which corresponds to the selected endpoint in an editor.

In Entity view, each entity can represent more than one endpoint. In that case, the menu choice will be replaced by Show 1 in Editor, Show 2 in Editor, etc.

If there are more than nine endpoints, the menu choice Show in Editor will invoke the following dialog, where it is possible to select the appropriate endpoint:

Figure 158 : The Show in Editor dialog

Popup Menus

There are two popup menus available in the Link Manager:

On Endpoints

Highlight Endpoint

Highlight Endpoint

Replace Endpoint

Replace Endpoint

Create Link

Create Link

Link Details

Link Details

Clear Link

Clear Link

Expand

Expand

Expand Substructure

Expand Substructure

Collapse

Collapse

Show in Editor

Show in Editor

On the Background

Consistency Check

Consistency Check

Check Endpoints

Check Endpoints

Expand Substructure

Expand Substructure

Collapse

Collapse

Options > Window

Options > Window

Options > Link

Options > Link

Options > Endpoint

Options > Endpoint

Filter

Filter

Search

Search

Search Again

Search Again

Show Organizer

Show Organizer

Keyboard Accelerators

In addition to the standard keyboard accelerators, described in Keyboard Accelerators, the following accelerators can be used in the Link Manager:

Accelerator Reference to corresponding command or quick button
Ctrl+E

Show in Editor

Ctrl+1

Show Organizer

Del

Clear Link

Arrow up

Select the endpoint one step up (move the selection)

Shift+arrow up

Move Up

Arrow down

Select the endpoint one step down (move the selection)

Shift+arrow 
down

Move Down

Quick Buttons

Except for some of the general quick buttons (see General Quick-Buttons) the following quick buttons are included the Link Manager.

Show Endpoints or Entities

Switches between the Endpoint and the Entity views; see Options > Window.

Consistency Check

Performs a consistency check operation; see Consistency Check.

Highlight Endpoint

Highlights the selected endpoint; see Highlight Endpoint.

Create Link

Creates a link between the highlighted and the selected endpoint; see Create Link.

Switch Link Direction

Changes the order of the links going to or from the (root) endpoint; see Options > Link.

Show or Hide Unused Endpoints

Toggles between showing and hiding endpoints that are not linked; see Filter.

Move Down

Moves the selected (root) endpoint one step down in the Link Manager view.

Move Up

Moves the selected (root) endpoint one step up in the Link Manager view.


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