RADE

Getting Started

Frameworks and Modules vs. Workspace and Projects

Developer Studio uses the concepts of "workspace" and "project". With Visual Studio .NET the concept of "workspace" is replaced with the concept of "solution". A solution is an area that contains projects, a "project" is defined as a set of files that produces a program/library or a final binary file.
CAA V5 tools manipulate related concepts:

• In both cases the  workspace represents the area where development projects are stored and a solution is considered as an entity with a name and a single owner.
• There is no Visual Studio .NET equivalent to CAA V5 frameworks. A framework collects a set of modules designed to work together to produce a certain "area" of functionality. In Visual Studio .NET, frameworks are mapped to projects. They appear at the same level as the projects corresponding to the frameworks internal modules.

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What Kind of CAA V5 Commands Have Been Mapped?

The customization of Visual Studio .NET includes:

• The CAA V5 Code Builder mkmk (and related tools)
• Some CAA V5 wizards: they help you create new components and files based upon CAA V5 components
• If some CAA V5 commands or special options are not available through the Dashboard menus, it is possible to open a DOS window (with a proper environment) in which all commands can be run.

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Where CAA V5 Commands

Mkmk and related features are available in the following menus: File, Edit, Project, Build, CAA V5 Workspace, Debug, Tools, Window, Help. Additional CAA V5 Commands are found under the menus: File->Add CAAV5 Item, File->Add CAAV5 Project. Note that these menus are not all available when launching Visual Studio .NET. You must first select New CAA V5 Workspace... or Open CAA V5 Workspace.

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Managing CAA V5 Commands

When first launching Visual .Net, CAA V5 Commands are located in particular menus. If you do not move them, they will always be located in these menus. However, you can change these commands locations. To do so, select Tools->Customize.... In the Customize dialog box, select the Commands tab, select Addins, select the command you want to move and drag and drop it onto the desired menu. This customized configuration will be unchanged when closing and re-opening Visual .Net. If you want to get back the default configuration, select Tools and select alternatively the following commands:

• Remove Mkmk Add-in commands from menus

• Remove CodeGenerator Add-in commands from menus

• Remove SCM commands Add-in from menus

Close Microsoft Visual .Net or Visual Studio 2005 and re-launch it. The default configuration is reset.

The commands are temporarily removed. To get them back, close and then re-launch Visual Studio.

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Synchronous and Asynchronous Commands

There are two kinds of CAA V5 commands that can be run:

1. Synchronous commands: you must wait for their completion to keep working with the environment. A log window opens while a synchronous command runs. You can swap between the Show Details >>/Hide Details << mode of the window to browse or hide the feedback of the command.
   At the end of the command, if successful, this window disappears automatically if in Hide Details mode. If the Output is being displayed, the Break button switches to Close. Click the  Close button to close the window.  If the command fails, you always need to close the window manually.

   

2. Asynchronous commands: these commands are launched in the background and you can continue to work within the dashboard.

For the C++ Interactive Dashboard, these commands outputs are redirected to the Output Tab with the CAA Tool name.

Traces are kept visible until a new command is run, allowing you to consult these messages, especially when an informative command has been run, in the example below we asked for the list of existing workspaces. The traces are also saved in files in your workspace and can be retrieved using Open Command Log... available in the Tools menu. The lifetime of these files is of approximately one day.

Asynchronous commands are piled in the CAA Command Manager and executed sequentially. The CAA Command Manager window is displayed whenever an asynchronous command is executing or waiting for execution. In this window you can see commands that are done, running or waiting. You can cancel a running command by selecting it in the list and clicking Stop. You can cancel all commands and close the window by clicking Stop All.  When all commands have stopped, the CAA Command Manager window is closed.

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When first opening  Visual Studio .NET, the dialog box opposite is displayed. It is strongly recommended to create the new keyboard mapping scheme. To do so, proceed as follows: From the Tools menu, select Customize.... The Customize window is displayed. Click Keyboard.... In the Options dialog box, create your shortcuts. Click OK when done.

What Do You Want to Do?

This section explains most of the RADE commands, along with a step-by-step sample. This scenario shows you how to:

• create a workspace
• open a workspace
• migrate a workspace
• copy an existing framework and its modules (framework CAABskDocument.edu)
• build a framework using mkmk
• execute a framework

 Creating a Workspace

We consider here the case where you are starting from scratch. If you already have a workspace on your file drive, see "Customize Microsoft Visual Studio .NET" [1] to know how to migrate a CAAV5 File Tree to a format which can be handled by Visual Studio .NET.

To create a workspace, proceed as follows:

From the File menu, select New CAA V5 Workspace.... The New CAA V5 Workspace window is displayed. In the Workspace Directory field, enter your workspace name or click the … button to select it. In the Tool level scrolling list, select CXR15 and click Next>. Click Close in the Initializing tools… window.

Note in the picture above, the Build On UNIX bar is not available. To find out more about the way to use the Setup tool to enable Build On Unix, see Building your software on UNIX.

After creating the workspace, the following window is displayed.

Select Define Prerequisite Workspace. Click Finish. Note that: Copy and modify frameworks through the Workspace Manager is only available if  the workspace was created using the Workspace Manager. To find out more about the Copy and modify frameworks from a reference workspace option, refer to Copy a Framework: CAABskDocument.edu. To find out more about the Define Prerequisite Workspace option, refer to Set up Prerequisites. To know more about the Migrate a workspace option, refer to Migrate a Workspace to a New CAA Release. Select an option and click Finish. The corresponding window will be automatically displayed.

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Opening a Workspace

We consider here the case where a project has already been set up. See Customize Microsoft Visual Studio .NET [1] to know how to migrate a CAA V5 File Tree to a format which can be handled by Microsoft Visual Studio .NET.

To open a workspace, proceed as follows:

From the File menu, select Open CAA V5 Workspace. In the Open with: combo box, select Mkmk (if need be.) Enter the workspace root directory or click the ... button to select it. In the Tool level combo box, select the Mkmk level that you want to use ((if there is only one level available, Default should display in the combo box). Click OK when done.

Note in the picture above, the Build On UNIX bar is not available. To find information on how to use the Setup tool to enable Build On Unix, refer to Building your software on UNIX.

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Migrating a Workspace to a New CAA Release

If you have developed code in a workspace on a CAA Release N level, and want to migrate this code to a new CAA Release N+x level, migrate your workspace. To do so, proceed as follows:

Create a new workspace. Remember to select a new location for the new workspace, as well as the tool level corresponding to the CAA Version level you are targeting. In the New CAA V5 Workspace window, select Migrate a workspace and press Finish. The Migrate a workspace window is displayed. In the Origin Workspace field, enter or select the pathname of the workspace to migrate. The new workspace will then be populated with the code from the origin workspace. You need to set your prerequisites to point to the new CAA code as explained in the section "Set up Prerequisites" and build your code as explained in "Build your workspace using mkmk".

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Copying a Framework: CAABskDocument.edu

We now see how to copy a framework from a workspace to another: we're going to copy the framework entitled "CAABskDocument.edu" available in the official CAA V5 education frameworks and which have been downloaded under E:\install\CAA2 directory. To do so, proceed as follows:

1. From the CAAV5 Workspace menu, select Copy Framework.... The Copy Framework window is displayed.
2. Click Add... to select the workspace containing the framework that you want to copy.
3. Click the ... to select the name(s) of the framework(s) to copy. Note that you can indicate the parts of the framework to copy: you can filter out the modules , the data directories, the derived objects (results of a build in the origin workspace), test objects (cf. Copy Function Test directory), etc...

When the origin directory is located on a Unix machine, it is not visible from the current Windows workstation. In this case the Add... buttons are useless and you must enter the usual information to allow a remote copy from the Unix machine.

Once the copy is completed, the new framework(s) and module(s) are not directly managed by the dashboards: you must update their "description" files to make the new data appear. To do so, proceed as follows:

From the CAAV5 Workspace menu, select Select CAA V5 Projects.... The Select modules to generate Developer Studio projects window is displayed showing you the framework(s) and module(s) that you can select and for which a project must be generated. Check MyWorkspace and click OK. The checked item corresponds to frameworks and modules that will be converted into Visual Studio .NET projects and included in your Visual Studio .NET solution for the C++ Interactive Dashboard. You can generate projects for all the modules of a framework or simply for a subset of them. If you check a framework, all the corresponding modules are considered as checked. If you just wish to add some of the modules in your workspace, simply check the modules that interest you. Note the subtle difference between the checkmarks of a framework when all its modules have been selected or when only a subset of its modules have been selected. In the second case, the checkmark is partly grayed out. This allows you to distinguish between the two cases when the file tree of the framework has not been expanded. Be aware that whenever you generate a project for a module, a project is necessarily generated for its containing framework. The generated Workspace will replace the one you are currently working in, so if you want to add some new modules or frameworks to your current workspace, make sure that the ones already in your project are checked. In most cases, this should already be the case: whenever you use this functionality, your selection is recorded and will become the default selection the next time. xxx

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Setting up Prerequisites

The prerequisite frameworks/modules must be managed in a CAA V5 File Tree, for instance, the directory where data have been copied from a CAA V5 build-time CD-ROM can be considered as the root of a CAA V5 workspace and can be specified as the location of prerequisites needed by a new application.

Setting up prerequisites consists in indicating the root directory(ies) of workspace(s) where the code builder (mkmk) will find the code necessary to build your objects. This action can be performed several times, the last setting replaces the previous ones. To define prerequisites, proceed as follows:

1. From the CAAV5 Workspace menu, select Locate Prerequisite Workspaces.... The Prerequisites window is displayed.
2. In the Mode field, select the mode that will reference your prerequisites.

   The Access prerequisites from their origin location and Copy prerequisites from origin location to current workspace options give you the choice to copy or to reference prerequisites. The choice is not so simple and we advise you to consult the following topic to find out more information about prerequisites management: "Prerequisite frameworks". The Copy prerequisites from origin location to a local directory and acc option is dedicated to advanced users. It enables you to mix both copy and concatenation modes. This is based on Build-time and Run-time considerations and should only be used by those with a good understanding of CATIA V5. In short, this mode performs a copy of your Build-time prerequisites in a local directory (different from your workspace directory), and then performs also a concatenation of this directory with other workspace(s) mandatory for runtime.

3. Click Add to add new prerequisites workspaces.
4. Click OK when done.

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Building Your Workspace Using mkmk

The first time you compile your program, use the mkmk builder which will not only compile your program but also generate information that will be used afterwards to accelerate compilations or to compile just one file.

If your program is based on components that are not present in your workspace (we call them pre-requisites), first set up your workspace by specifying the location of these components. Then you can run mkmk. To run mkmk, proceed as follows:

1. From the Build menu, select mkmk.
2. Check the MyWorkspace\ node.
3. Check Update makefiles (-u) and Debug mode (-g) if need be and click OK.

Once the project/module has been compiled, you can then compile just one source or run a faster compilation of a module: if you are editing a source file and press Ctrl+F7 (function key), you start the compilation of this source file. if you are editing a source file and press F7, you start the build of the module containing the source file in editor.

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Running a Program

When you write a CAA V5 application, your application needs external resources such as dictionaries, message files, graphic resources, and so on. Those resources are delivered in data modules but scattered across many frameworks (either your frameworks or prerequisite frameworks), the first thing to do before running a program is to gather resources into a common directory that we call the Runtime View. To create the Runtime View, proceed as follows:

From the CAAV5 Workspace menu, select Create/Update Runtime View.... Check the options you need and click OK when done. Note that: Copy file if time stamp is different allows you to reduce the amount of data to copy from the Buildtime to the Runtime View. Remove destination... allows you to clean up the Runtime View before copying files. Framework types... depending where you work some kinds of frameworks may be not meaningful. Other Options for advanced users (see mkCreateRuntimeView command for other options).

Once the CAABskDocument.edu framework is built and the Runtime View has been created, you can run your program CAABskEduCatalogGenerator.exe. Therefore, select the module CAABskEduCatalogGenerator.m as Active project. To do so, proceed as follows:

In the Solution Explorer, right-click CAABskEduCatalogGenerator.m and select Set as StartUp project... Then set the corresponding executable load module to this active project. Right-click the project CAABskEduCatalogGenerator.m in the Solution Explorer, and select Properties. The Property Pages window is displayed. Select Debugging in the left pane and enter (or select) in the  Command field, the name of the executable load module CAABskEduCatalogGenerator.exe from the runtimeview of the workspace. Launch the program. To do so, proceed as follows: From the Debug menu, select Start without debugging or use F5.

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Creating and Executing a Tool

You can create you own tool. To do so, proceed as follows:

From the Tools menu, access External tools.... The External Tools window is displayed. Click Add. In the Title field, enter the name of the new tool. In the Command field, click the ... button to select the executable file associated to the command. Enter arguments or click the button to select predefined values. Enter a directory or click the button to select the directory. Click Apply when done.

The new command is displayed in the Tools menu. By default, after executing Open CAAV5 workspace..., the Visual Studio .NET environment is set with the runtime environment of the workspace. This is done in order to execute and debug CAA V5 programs with standard Visual Studio .NET commands. The problem is that runtime environment in not compatible with buildtime commands. So if you want to execute buildtime commands (mkmk, mkodt, mkCheckSource for example) in your tool, swap to the buildtime .

To do this, execute %RADE_ToolsData%\vcenv.bat at the beginning of your tool. Note that the RADE_ToolsData environment variable is automatically created and set by Open CAAV5 workspace...

Example MyTool.sh:

@echo off
rem Display runtime environment by default
rem ======================================
set

rem Swap to buildtime environment
rem =============================
call %RADE_ToolsData%\vcenv.bat

rem Display buildtime environment and continue...
rem =============================================
set
...

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In Short

• A CAA V5 workspace corresponds to a Visual Studio .NET solution.
• Frameworks and modules are mapped to Visual Studio .NET projects.
• A Workspace is opened by giving the path to its root directory (mkmk is available).
• Commands are run in synchronous or asynchronous mode, two kinds of windows have been defined to handle their outputs.
• The mkmk Code Builder is used instead of usual compilers, one advantage is the support of the concatenation (prerequisite components can be searched for in other workspaces).

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References

History

Copyright © 2005, Dassault Systèmes. All rights reserved.