The Message Flow editor is the default editor provided by the Broker Application Development perspective for defining a graphical representation of a message flow in the workbench, and for setting properties for individual message flow nodes.
Open a message flow file (.msgflow) in the Broker Development view to launch the appropriate editor in the Editor view. The Editor view is where you select built-in and user-defined nodes, and the connections between them, to define a message flow.
The Message Flow editor has the following views:
The Broker Development view shows all the resources in your workspace; that is, all message set resources and all message flow resources.
The editor view shows the contents of the resource that is currently open. It also shows tabs for each of the resources that you have open so that you can quickly switch between them.
When the resource that is open is a message flow, at the bottom left of the editor view, there are two tabs, Graph and User Defined Properties.
When you select Graph (the default), the Editor view contains a graphical display of the message flow.
To the left of the editor view, there is a palette bar that contains all the available nodes that you can include in the message flow. By default, the palette bar is shown in collapsed mode when you open a message flow.
To open the palette, use one of the following methods:
By default, the palette appears on the left side of the editor view. You can move it to the right side of the editor view by clicking on the Palette bar while it is in collapsed mode, and dragging the bar to the right-side of the editor view.
When you select the User Defined Properties tab, a User Defined Properties editor is opened that allows you to change the User Defined Properties of the message flow. The User Defined Properties editor consists of a User Property Hierarchy view and a Details view.
The User Property Hierarchy view displays three icons, Add Property Group, Add Property, and Delete that you can use to update the property hierarchy. When you add a property, a Details view is opened. In the Details view you can define the property Type and Default Value.
The Outline view enables you to navigate to a particular node in a message flow, and edit its properties.
The Palette view lists the available nodes that you can select and include in the message flow. For more information about the palette and how to customize the layout and settings, see Message flow node palette.
The Overview view provides a useful summary for large, complex message flows because it shows a small-scale version of the flow. Click the tab to show or hide the outline view.
The tasks view displays the warning and error messages that are generated by the editor's validation when you save the message flow file. If you double-click an error, the editor indicates where it is located (for example, if you have not set a mandatory property in a node, it opens the Properties view for that node on the right page).
The icons in the toolbar and their actions are shown in the table below.
Icon | Label | Action |
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Manhattan | Displays all node connections as a series of horizontal and vertical lines |
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Show grid | Displays a grid of horizontal and vertical dotted lines in the background of the editor area. |
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Grid properties | Defines the horizontal and vertical spacing of the grid markers, and the gap between the borders of the editor area and the start of the grid markers. |
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Align left | Lines up the left edge of the currently selected nodes. Enabled only when more than one node is selected. |
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Align center | Lines up the horizontal center point (between left and right) of the currently selected nodes. Enabled only when more than one node is selected. |
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Align right | Lines up the right edge of all the currently selected nodes. Enabled only when more than one node is selected. |
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Align top | Lines up the top edge of the currently selected nodes. Enabled only when more than one node is selected. |
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Align middle | Lines up the vertical center point (between top and bottom) of the currently selected nodes. Enabled only when more than one node is selected. |
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Align bottom | Lines up the bottom edge of the currently selected nodes. Enabled only when more than one node is selected. |
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Show distribute box | Displays a rectangular box around the currently selected nodes. |
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Distribute horizontally | Aligns the currently selected nodes with the nearest right or left edge within the distribute box. |
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Distribute vertically | Aligns the currently selected nodes with the nearest top or bottom edge within the distribute box. |