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Consultoria & Serviços Informáticos

Magritte - User's Guide (v. 0.2 - alfa)


The last version of this document will allways be available at http://www.m16e.com/en/opensource/magritte/doc/index.html.

Index:

1. Installation

Unpack the file you have downloaded in a directory of your choice, for intance, /usr/local/m16e.

One directory is created, magritte and the following files will be copied to magritte directory:

Filename Description
magritte.sh lauching script
magritte.properties properties file
db-field-types.xml file providing data type abstraction between databases

There will also be created the following directories:

Directory Description
doc this guide
img image directory
lib contains the jar files
xgm the XML files for Magritte

Next, you should edit 'magritte.properties' and fill it with the apropriate values for your system. The properties file may have the following fields:

Field Name Description
Database connection
db.driver.name driver's name
db.driver.protocol protocol's name
db.sep.pm separator between the protocol and the machine name
db.machine machine's name
db.sep.md separator between the machine name and the database name
db.name database's name
db.schema schema's name
db.user user's name
db.password password
db.family to distinguish between DBMS 'flavours' (currently, it can be either 'postgres' or 'others').
db.bundle.file the database's internationalized bundle
Default work directories
xgm.dir the directory in which are Magritte's XML GUI files
Miscellaneous
inc.hscroll number of pixels to move when pressing the left and right arrow keys
inc.vscroll number of pixels to move when pressing the up and down arrow keys
editor text editor for SQL files
browser browser for viewing HTML help files
Localization data
locale.language language
locale.country country code
locale.variant variant
timezone timezone

Here is a sample file, filled with the apropriate values for a PostgreSQL database on the same machine (localhost), named 'example1', using kwrite as the editor, Mozilla Firefox browser and localized for Portugal: 


db.driver.name=org.postgresql.Driver
db.driver.protocol=jdbc:postgresql
db.sep.pm=://
db.machine=localhost
db.sep.md=/
db.name=example1
db.schema=
db.password=
db.user=_your_username_

db.run.sql=psql -f

db.family=postgres-7.3

xgm.dir=xgm

inc.hscroll=10
inc.vscroll=10

editor=kwrite
browser=firefox

locale.language=pt
locale.country=PT
locale.variant=EURO

timezone=Europe/Lisbon

2. Running the Application

You can invoke Magritte from the command line with magritte.sh script.

The script allows two switches:

  • -p
    • followed by a file to read the properties from (tipically magritte.properties)
  • -f
    • followed by the name of the layout file to edit

Upon launching the application you get a panel in which will be show the layout structure as a tree.

At the top you will see a panel with the following buttons:

Icon Description
Creates a new layout
Open existing layout
Save current layout
Invoke a file editor.
Force layout refresh .

2.1. Designing a Layout

Once you open a layout file we'll get a tree on the left panel with all the layout's components. From this tree we can easily figure the hierarchy of the components.

Clicking with the right button, we get a popup menu presenting a context aware set of options.


Fig. 2.1 - Inserting a new component

After you choose the component to add, a winow will pop up allowing you to change the components' attributtes.


Fig. 2.1 - Editing the component's attributes

Requirements

Java 2 Runtime Environment (JRE 1.5.0, or higher) (*)

DBMS with a JDBC type II driver



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