The 2002.05.00 release of Rational RequisitePro includes significant enhancements to the user interface. These enhancements are designed to assist you in accessing your RequisitePro projects and requirement artifacts. Users of earlier releases should take a few minutes to acquaint themselves with the new environment, shown in the following figure and described in the list below the figure.

• When you start RequisitePro, the Open Project dialog box appears, which enables you to select a project to work with or to create a new project. Click the Existing tab to select a project from your project list, or click the New tab to create a project. As in previous versions of RequisitePro, you can add or remove projects on the project list and choose to open projects in read-only or exclusive permission mode. The Open Project and Create Project dialog boxes are also available through the File > Open Project and File > New > Project commands.
• The menus from the former Tool Palette and Views Workplace are now centralized in a single application window. The Project menu has been replaced by a File menu. You can create documents with the File > New > Document command, and open documents in the Explorer (described below). In Microsoft Word, a new floating toolbar presents common RequisitePro document functions. You can drag this toolbar to an edge of the Word workspace to "dock" it there. The RequisitePro menu is still available in Microsoft Word. Other menus have been changed to optimize the menu structure.
• The Explorer is RequisitePro’s primary navigation window. In this window, project artifacts (documents, requirements, views, and packages) are displayed hierarchically in a tree browser. Project information is organized in packages, which are units of related artifacts. The project’s root package is displayed as the project node, and the contents of each root package are displayed beneath it. When you select an artifact, a description of it appears in the window below the Explorer. You can use the Explorer to access, view, and edit your project artifacts. For example, you can double-click or right-click a view or a document to open it; you can select requirements and edit them; and you can drag and drop artifacts between packages. The Explorer reflects saved changes made to an open document, view, or requirement.

When upgrading older RequisitePro projects that do not contain packages, RequisitePro organizes requirement artifacts in the following default package structure:

• Requirements Document. A package is created for each requirements document, including all requirements that are located within that document.
• Requirement Type. A package is created for each requirement type, including all requirements of that type that are not located in documents. If a requirement type does not include any requirements or only includes requirements that are located in documents, a package is not created for that requirement type.
• View Type. A package is created for each view type: Attribute Matrix, Traceability Matrix, Traceability Tree. Each view package contains all views of that type in the project.

You can create and delete packages in order to organize your project artifacts in a way that meets your team's needs. For example, you can group documents, requirements, and views in packages by feature, component, or team. Move artifacts between packages by dragging and dropping them or changing the Package setting in the artifact's Properties dialog box.

For more information on using the enhanced RequisitePro environment, refer to Quick Tour and the full RequisitePro online tutorial, the online Help, and the manual User's Guide: Rational RequisitePro.