Introduction
The workspace is the directory used by WebRatio Platform to store the projects created while using the tool. This lesson shows you four possible ways to organize workspaces. You will see some best practices that you can use to organize, name, and structure your workspace, how to use multiple workspaces and different WebRatio Platform versions on the same machine, and also how to import and export projects to and from WebRatio Platform. Click on each item to go to a section explaining the topic in depth.
Using Best Practices
When you launch WebRatio Platform you see a dialog asking for the workspace to use. In this dialog a default option is preloaded, and it can be changed by clicking on the "Browse..." button. This dialog will continue to show every time that you launch WebRatio Platform. This is not recommended but if you want to use always the current workspace, just check the option "Use this as the default and do not ask again". In this way your choice will be loaded directly at WebRatio Platform's startup, and you will no longer see this dialog. Now that you know the procedure to choose a workspace, try to think about a meaningful naming convention.
The best practice to manage your workspace is to create a folder outside the WebRatio Platform installation directory. This helps to keep your WebRatio workspaces and projects aware of installations. It also helps to find quickly and avoid waste of time searching projects on your local drive. A good example of how to manage your workspace is to create a directory that contains all the workspaces in order to easily find the projects on the local drive. It is important to choose meaningful names for folders to help you remember the WR Version and the projects contained.
To have an example of a good workspace organization and structure you can refer to the one shown. Once the workspace has been selected, you can start working on your projects. In WebRatio Platform you are able to develop different types of projects. This is useful to separate in different projects the aspects of your web application: the Web Project, the Style Project to be applied and the Custom Components possibly needed by your project. This means that typically a Web application developed with WebRatio Platform consists of three projects. The internal structure of the workspace must reflect the projects associated with a Web application. For example the CRM Web case study Web application is made of three projects:
- The CRMWeb Web Project.
- The CRMStyle Style Project.
- The CRMComponents Component Projects.
All project must be located inside the same project folder to create a tree structure. This is a good practice to organize your projects.
Working with Multiple Workspaces
In WebRatio Platform you have no limitations on the number of possible workspaces. You are free to organize your work as you prefer, and use as many workspaces as you want. You can create your workspace in two different moments: at startup or while using WebRatio Platform.
At startup, you have to choose the "Browse..." option when the dialog prompts you to select the workspace. You can then choose the desired folder and next click "OK".
While using WebRatio Platform, you have to click on "File" and then "Switch workspace" and then "Other". Next, choose the path of the new workspace using the "Browse.." button. Click "OK" to start using the new workspace. Note that every time that you start using a new workspace WebRatio Platform checks your license activation. To pass the verification check, you need to insert your license credentials. This is not a new activation but only a verification check.
Suppose that you have two workspaces. Let's see the procedure to switch from one to the other. From the "File" menu choose the option "Switch Workspace", and select the workspace that you desire. Remember that changing the workspace means going trough the verification check of your license. Also in this case, reinsert your license's credentials.
Working with Different WebRatio Platform Versions
Let's suppose that you were using WebRatio Platform 7.1 and now you want to start using the WebRatio Platform version 7.2 on a project you developed on the previous version. The best way to work with different versions of WebRatio Platform is to create one dedicated workspace for every version. Regarding projects, when a new WebRatio Platform version is released, in order to continue working on the same project, you have to migrate it. The first step to migrate a project is importing it into the new workspace. Then you have to follow the migration guides related to your WebRatio Platform versions.
Importing and Exporting a Project
In these sections we will see how to import and export projects into and from WebRatio Platform. Importing and exporting can be useful when you need to change your workspace or share the project with other machines.
How to Import a Project
Let's see how to import a project inside a workspace. Click on "File" and then "Import..." to choose the import source type. Choose "Existing Projects into Workspace" and click on "Next". Now from this dialog you can choose between two types of existing project: "Archive file", if the project that you are importing is inside an archive file (for instance "CRMWeb.zip"), or "Root directory" if you are importing the project directly from its folder. Let's suppose to import the "CRM" web project, giving the path of the root of the project itself. The dialog will list all the projects contained inside that folder. Remember to check the "Copy into Workspace" option in order to make a copy of that project inside your current workspace. Otherwise, the new project will be only a link to the existing one, in the old workspace. The effect will be that all the new changes will be applied to the project in the old workspace.
You can also add the imported projects inside a "Working set". A "Working set" is used to group together elements, like all the project related to a product, to restrict the set of resources displayed in the outline. Then click on "Finish" to import the files.
How to Export a Project
Exporting generates two different outputs. It can export projects to archive file, or it exports directly the whole directory structure. In the next slides we are going to see how. We start from how to export a Web Project. In the example the project exported is the "CRM" web project. To export the project, right-click on the project folder and choose the "Export" option. A dialog window appears in which the user is asked to choose a type of export among the available options. You can obtain a folder structure that starts from the root, or an archive file. Let's see how you can export it into an archive file. Choose "General" and then "Archive File" and click on "Next". From the new window you can see that the project is checked and selected to be exported. Choose a path or browse to the place where you want to export it. Then click "Finish" and the exporting process is done.