What Are the Building Blocks of a WebFOCUS Maintain Project?

In this section:

After you open the Maintain Development Environment and create a project, you must add components to your project. You can add any file you want to your project, although when you deploy your project to create an application, these files should make sense in the context of where you are deploying them. For example, WebFOCUS Maintain can deploy to MVS machines, but deploying a graphic file there may not work well.

When you first create a project, WebFOCUS Maintain creates four folders that represent some common components that you may want to place in your project:

You can add components to a project either by creating new ones or by copying existing ones.


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Creating New Project Files

How to:

You can use WebFOCUS Maintain to create new project files for the following items:



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Procedure: How to Create a Project Component

To create a project component:

  1. Do one of the following:
    • Right-click either the project or one of its folders in the Explorer, click New in the pop-up menu, and then click Project file.

      or

    • In the File menu, click New, then click Project file.
  2. In the Create new project file dialog box, select the type for the new component, as shown in the following image.

    Create new project file dialog box

  3. Choose a location for the component. Your options include any of the directories in the project path. For more information on paths, see How to Change the Project Path.
  4. Type a name for the component. This name must conform to Windows naming standards. WebFOCUS Maintain appends the appropriate extension to the file name.
  5. If you are creating a Maintain procedure, you can select the Import module check box to indicate that the procedure will be an import module. An import module is a procedure that contains functions that are called by other Maintain procedures only, but does not run on its own. This means that there will be no Top function. For more information on import modules, see Developing Procedures.
  6. Click OK.

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Adding Existing Files to Your Project

How to:

In addition to creating new files, you can also add existing files to your project. This option allows you to reuse existing files without having to recreate them.



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Procedure: How to Add an Existing File to Your Project

To add an existing file to your project:

  1. Ensure that WebFOCUS can see the type of file you want to add to the project. If the file is an HTML File (.htm or .html), a Maintain procedure (.mtn or .for), a Master file (.mas or .acx), or a FOCUS procedure (.fex), you do not need to do anything here. If you are adding another type of file, see How to View New File Types in the Explorer.
  2. Ensure the file you want to add is in the project path. Do one of the following:
    • Open the Properties dialog box for the project, click the Directories tab, and add the directory where the file is located.

      or

    • Using Windows Explorer, move the file to one of the directories that are in the project path.
  3. Turn on Display all files in the project paths:
    • Click the Display all files in the project paths button Display all files in the project paths button.

      or

    • In the View menu, turn on Show All Files.
  4. Right-click the file in the Explorer and click Add to Project in the pop-up menu.


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Procedure: How to Add an Existing File From Another WebFOCUS Server to Your Project

If the file you want to add to your project is not on your machine, but located on another WebFOCUS Server, you can still add it to your project.

  1. In the Explorer window, expand Remote Application Servers.
  2. Expand the WebFOCUS Server where the file you want to add to your project is located.
  3. When you find the file, drag it into your project folder.

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What Other Types of Files Can Go Into a WebFOCUS Maintain Project?

There are many other kinds of files that you might want to include in your WebFOCUS Maintain project.

For example, you can include graphics, ActiveX controls, and any of the following types of external procedures:

Being able to include all of these kinds of procedures into your project can preserve your investments in these pieces of software.


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Defining the Flow of a Project

A project must contain one or more procedures. One of these procedures is your starting procedure, which is executed first when you execute the project. The other procedures are executed only if they are called explicitly using the CALL syntax.

A procedure consists of functions (defined by the CASE and ENDCASE keywords). One of the functions in your procedure is called Top, and is executed when the procedure is executed. As with procedures, the other functions are executed only if they are called explicitly using the PERFORM syntax.

To display an initial form somewhere in the Top Case of the starting procedure, you must insert the command that displays this form (or Top Case should call another function or procedure that executes this command). The command you use to display a form is Winform Show form.

Before setting up a project, it is recommended that you read Designing Applications for Scalability and Performance.


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