2.3.3 Working with projects
Projects
are the way the MetaEdit+
repository arranges type and instance data internally. Each piece of data is
stored in exactly one project in the repository, but can be referred to by
elements stored in other projects. When such a reference is followed and the
project of the referred element has not been opened explicitly, this project
will be opened seamlessly in the background.
There is no separate tool for managing projects as these
tasks have been incorporated in the normal Project list found in the Graph
Browser, Type Browser, etc. Use any of these as your starting point for managing
projects. Creating, opening and closing projects are tasks allowed for all
users. Renaming and deleting projects, however, requires system administration
privileges.
Creating projects
To create a new project, select either Repository | New
Project... from the main Launcher’s menu bar or New... from the
pop-up menu for the current browser’s Projects list. MetaEdit+ will first
ask you to accept the committing of the current transaction (answer Yes)
and then prompts for a name for the new project. Once you have entered the name,
MetaEdit+ will commit the changes to make the project creation permanent and
shows a dialog reporting that a new project has been created and
opened.
The subdirectories and files for the new project will have
names based on just the alphanumeric characters in the project
name.
Opening projects
To open one or more projects, select either Repository |
Open Project... from the main Launcher’s menu bar or Open...
from the pop-up menu for the current browser’s Projects list. You will be
presented with a list of possible projects to open. Choose the desired projects
from this list and press OK.
Please note that sometimes projects can be opened in the
background, although they have not yet been explicitly opened and hence do not
appear in the list of open projects in browsers. Such projects are marked with
an asterisk ‘*’ in the list of possible projects to
open.
Closing projects
To close projects, select
Close... from the pop-up menu
for the current browser’s Projects list. You will be prompted with a list
of open projects. Choose those projects you want to close from this list, and
press
OK.
Renaming projects
Unlike other project related tasks, certain restrictions apply
for renaming projects:
| Renaming
requires system administration
privileges. |
| Renaming
is an exclusive operation, i.e. the system administrator must be the sole user
logged into the repository when this task is carried
out. |
| Only
projects that have not been open during the current transaction can be
renamed. |
To rename a project:
1) | Make
sure that other users are not logged in to the repository and that you are
logged in as a system
administrator. |
2) | If
the projects to be renamed are open, close them and start a new transaction
either by committing or abandoning the current
one. |
3) | Select
Rename... from the pop-up menu for the current browser’s Projects
list. |
4) | A
list of possible projects opens. Choose the project you want to rename from this
list. |
5) | Enter
the new name for the project when prompted. After this, MetaEdit+ will show a
dialog reporting that the renaming was
successful. |
Deleting projects
As deleting projects can be a high-risk operation, certain
restrictions apply for it:
| Deleting
requires system administration
privileges. |
| Deleting
is an exclusive operation, i.e. the system administrator must be the sole user
logged into the repository when this task is carried
out. |
| Only
projects that have not been open during the current transaction can be
deleted. |
To delete a project:
1) | Make
sure that other users are not logged in to the repository and that you are
logged in as a system
administrator. |
2) | If
the projects to be deleted are open, close them and start a new transaction
either by committing or abandoning the current
one. |
3) | Select
Delete... from the pop-up menu for the current browser’s Projects
list. |
4) | A
list of possible projects opens. Choose the projects you want to delete from
this list and press
Ok. |
5) | Selected
project(s) will be deleted. The deletion will become permanent when you commit
your transaction (i.e. it is possible to revert the deletion by abandoning the
transaction). |
Making projects
read-only
To make some model data read-only (possibly with exceptions
for certain users), you can make some projects read-only, and if desired choose
a list of users who still have modeling rights for a project.
To edit project modeling rights:
1) | Open
the pop-up menu in the Projects list in a Browser, and select Modeling
Rights.... |
2) | Select
the projects that you want to be read-only by default for modeling.
|
3) | For each
read-only project, you will be prompted for the users who should still have
modeling rights in that project. |
Note
that if you are editing the
Modeling Rights later, the currently
read-only projects will be shown selected: do not change the selections unless
you want to change which projects are read-only. Similarly, when you are shown
the user list for a project, the current users who have modeling rights will be
shown selected: if you do not want to change them, just press Enter to move to
the list for the next read-only
project.