Configuring the Flexible Explorer - A Worked Example

Using the Flexible explorer tool the Project Explorer can be configured according to the LEXICON elements structure shown:

Each block on the diagram is defined as shown:

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PBSWLD

This is a definition of separate hierarchy structure , and is presented as a single root node

PBS Object Node:

Used to define the generation of a set of nodes at the hierarchical level it is placed. The nodes and their inherenct members will will be dynamically updated when the attributes or criteria of related database objects are modified

PBSTXN

PBS Text Node:

This is simply a generating node, and does not represent any database object. But they can contain PBSOBNs

PBSCRT

PBS Criteria:

This element is used to position resulting nodes below appropriate/required parent nodes

195 the menu bar, or right click to display the context menu and click the ‘Create’ > ‘PBSWLD: PBS Templates World’ entry, to create a PBS Templates world.

Within the Current Element Editor, fill in the attribute details of the created PBS world as shown.

Creating a PBS template (PBSTPL)

Within the Current Element Editor, fill in the attribute details of the created PBSTPL as shown.

The ‘PBS text’ entry specifies the text to be displayed on the created template, like a node name. This is set to ‘Project BreakDown Structure (PBS)’.

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‘PBS Sorting’ entry specifies the order in which items generated from nodes beneath the root node/template will be placed. This is set to ‘Natural Alpha Numeric’, which is selected from the pick list. Hence items with node texts which begin with higher alphabets will be listed first before lower alphabets etc.

A user defined context menu can be referenced and setup for the template node with the ‘PBS context menu’.

This could be extracted from a method within a pml function using the ‘Flexible Explorer Editor form.

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Each node and items on the Flexible Explorer interface can have an icon displayed next to its text. The ‘PBS icon’ entry specifies what icon is to be displayed by typing in the icons name (as this must already exist in the Shared Resources location) or can be derived with a PML 1 expression.

This will be left blank, which will have the icon representing the object displayed.

From the created PBS World, and PBS Template, the resulting explorer hierarchy will be displayed within the Engineering Tags application as shown:

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running a ‘get work’ updates the contents of the explorer with changes from the LEXICON module

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Creating a PBS Object (PBSOBN)

Select the created PBS Template, display the context menu and click ‘Create’ > ‘PBSOBN:

PBS Object Node’ to create PBS Object Node.

Within the Current Element Editor, fill in the attribute details of the created PBSOBN as shown.

The ‘PBS text’ entry is specified by an expression which combines the full name (FLNN) and the description (desc) value of a resulting object separated by a dash ( - ), in order to derive the display text (node name) of the objects.

The selection of a ‘PBS formula type’ entry determines the kind of formula which is used to derive the objects to be listed in the explorer (resulting nodes). Select the ‘PML expression’ entry from the pick list.

The ‘PBS formula’ entry is a text attribute whose entered values is dependent on the formula type selected.

Type in: ‘Collect all sysgrp’. This will fetch all available SYSGRP objects available in databases within the current MDB.

‘PBS Sorting’ entry is set to ‘Same as on Parent’. Resulting nodes will be ordered using the same selection that was selected for the owning PBSOBN element (Natural Alpha Numeric).

From the created PBS object, the resulting explorer hierarchy will be displayed within the Engineering Tags application as shown:

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Creating a PBS Text Node (PBSTXN)

Select the created PBS Object, display the context menu and click ‘Create’ >

‘PBSTXN: PBS Text Node’ to create PBS Text Node.

Within the Current Element Editor, fill in the attribute details of the created PBSTXN as shown.

‘PBS formula type’ entry is set to ‘PML function’ as this specifies that the following PBS formula entry will be a global variable which points to a pml function within the pml library. Enter:

‘!!getAreasForSystemACE()’

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The PBS formula can be entered using the ‘Flexible Explorer formula editor’ form

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The entered formula reads and deploys the methods contained within the referenced PML function. This particular function is designed to generate a node which will be based on the Area numbers of engineering items (ENGITE).

So this will create a folder in the explorer hierarchy which will be named after the area number which is shared by objects it contains. This means that when an object is created, it will be grouped by area numbers in this node.

The FlexibleExplorer formula editor is also used to make the entered pml function apply to every object generated by the PBSOBN created earlier. This is done by dynamically entering the reference number of the PBSOBN as an argument in the command:

Place the cursor inside the parenthesis ( | ) and then click the ‘Insert parameter’ link label, then select the entry as shown:

This will dynamically place the DB refno of the selected item as an argument within the function being called

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Create another PBS text node (PBSTXN) which will generate a node to group and hold items according to their element types. Its behaviour and node name will be derived from the pml function within the PBS formula, which it references.

Within the Current Element Editor, fill in the attribute details of the created PBSTXN as shown.

‘PBS formula type’ entry is set to ‘PML function’. For the PBS formula entry, Enter:

‘!!getEngineeringClassesACE()’.

Create another PBS object node (PBSOBN) which will generate a node to group and hold items according to their element types. Its behaviour and node name will be derived from the pml function within the PBS formula, which it references.

Within the Current Element Editor, fill in the attribute details of the created PBSTXN as shown.

This created PBS Object node will generate the database object (Engineering item), which will be located and grouped beneath the higher elements in the hierarchy of the structure.

The objects generated will display their full names (FLNN).

‘PBS formula type’ entry is set to ‘PML function’. For the PBS formula entry, use the FlexibleExplorer formula editor form as shown: