All browsers share a similar appearance and some common behavior, such as project operations and list filtering. Figure 3-20 shows the Graph Browser as an example of the general browser window layout. In all browsers, the left-hand list shows all the projects that are currently opened in the MetaEdit+ client. Highlighted project names (like ‘Digital Watch’ in Figure 3-20) indicate which of the projects are currently selected for display in this browser. The middle and right-hand lists in the browser window show either the types or instances of design elements in the selected projects. Note that selecting a project only affects what is visible in this browser, and does not actually open or close any project.

Project management operations can be accessed via the project list’s pop-up menu. To open a project:

As a result a dialog opens with a list of possible projects to be opened (Figure 3-21). The projects available are those to which you have access rights, and which are not yet open. If a project has not yet been explicitly opened, but you have already referenced some data there (often graph types), the project will be marked with an asterisk ‘*’. Opening projects may take a little while, depending on their size.

Similarly, you can close projects by choosing Close... from the project list’s pop-up menu and selecting them in the list dialog that opens. Note that the current selections in the projects list are not related to which projects will be closed. If you close all projects, you will be prompted to open another project. If you close the default project, you will be prompted to choose another project as the default.

You can also create new projects by selecting New... from the project list’s pop-up menu. Check with your system administrator about project creation and naming conventions. Note that you must remember to set the new project as default in order to add graphs and related design information to it.

It is also possible to rename and delete projects from the pop-up menu, but this requires system administrator privileges. For more information about renaming and deleting projects, please refer to the ‘MetaEdit+ System Administrator Guide’.

The default project field shows in which project new graphs will be stored. New objects, graph representations and other design elements are automatically stored into the same project as their graphs.

Only one project can be set as the default (e.g. ‘Digital Watch’ in Figure 3-20) but multiple projects can be open for example for viewing and reuse purposes. Thus, the default project setting is generally the project that you are actually working on: i.e. in which you add new graphs.

You can set the default project by choosing the project name from the Default project pull-down list under the project list.

To help browsing when there are many elements (types or instances) shown in the middle and right-hand lists, two additional fields at the bottom of the window can be used to set filters for the lists. By typing ‘T*’ in the field below the Graphs list (Figure 3-20), you can filter the list to show only instances starting with a capital letter T. Wildcards can be used: ‘*’ to represent any sequence of characters, and ‘#’ to represent any single character.

In hierarchical views, the parent items of items matching the filter will also be displayed, to maintain the hierarchy.

You can expand branches individually in the middle list’s hierarchy tree view by clicking their + icon, or expand the whole tree by pressing the Expand button (Figure 3-22) that is located next to the Tree pull-down list.

You can also expand the currently selected branch with the ‘+’ key on the numeric keypad, contract it with ‘-’, or fully expand it with ‘*’.