Using the Class Explorer

Use the Class Explorer to:

• Find classes, including rule types and work types.
• Understand the class structure and inheritance relationships.
• Find the rules — properties, models, activities, and so on — that apply to a class.
• Find instances of certain classes.

Familiarity with the terms class, inheritance, pattern inheritance, rule, sibling, and instance will help you learn to use the Class Explorer.

After you set up personal Class Explorer preferences, use these elements in this sequence:

1. Use the Class Explorer tree control to identify and select a single class.
2. Interact with the toolbar and workspace to list qualifying objects that are related to that class. See Explorer tools — Workspace results.
3. Review and interact with the results, visible in the workspace.

The tree control displays all or a portion of the entire class structure, growing from the left. Select a starting point from those in the selection box:

• Select @baseclass to present the entire tree, or to access rules that apply to the @baseclass class in the workspace
• Select a standard top-level base classes such as Assign-, Data-, Rule-, Work-, Log- or Link-, to explore the classes derived from these classes. In the workspace, you can list instances of the concrete classes, and rules that apply to any selected class.
• Select a top-level class or container class (corresponding to a work pool) for your application to explore classes derived from that class. In the workspace, you can list instances of the concrete classes, and rules that apply to any selected class.

Use these single-click controls to interact with the tree display:

• + (plus sign) — To expand a portion of the tree.
• - (minus sign) — To collapse (hide) a portion of the tree.
• icon (not the label) — To open the class rule that defines that concrete class.
• icon (not the label) — To open the class rule that defines that abstract class.
• or label text — To start a search of that class based on Type and Scope selection box settings.

How classes are organized into a hierarchy, and the labels that appear on classes, depend on your role and preferences. Text in the tree control may identify a category, a class label, or a segment of the class name.

For quick access to rules, place your mouse pointer in the Class Explorer and right-click to access a context menu. The menu choices that appear depend on the class visible to the topic of the display, shown as [Class] in the examples below, and the location of the pointer. Select a menu item:

You can customize the display produced by the Class Explorer control.

1. Select Preferences from the selection list; this is the bottom entry.
2. On the Preferences form, click the  Class Explorer button in the Customize group.
3. A window appears listing all top-level classes in your system that you can access. Select one or more check boxes to control which top-level classes you want to appear in the Class Explorer selection list.
4. Click  Save  to close the window.
5. Set the Display elements on the Preferences form as desired.
6. Click  Save  to save the updated preferences, which take effect immediately.

The workspace changes to list rules or other instances of the selected class.

Lists in the Class Explorer are presented in groups of 10 pages of 200 items each:

• Click a digit on the paging control to access any page within the current group.
• Click the Previous or Next link (if visible) to access an earlier or later group of pages.

See Explorer — Workspace Results

After you create a class, it may not appear in the Class Explorer display until you click the Refresh toolbar button () to refresh the display.