Key Features

Studio Developer provides numerous new features to make Gen easier to use and more productive. The key new features are described in this document: Studio Developer Key New Features and highlights are described below.

Model Explorer

• You can quickly access objects by ‘pinning’ them or by having them automatically added to the Recently Used list.

• The model-wide Search and Replace tool allows you to search the model for text strings in literals, notes and descriptions.

Action Diagram Features

• Action diagram statements can be edited using a combination of keyboard entry and mouse selection.

• Code suggestion / auto-complete features assist in selecting options and reduce the number of key strokes required.

• You can undo/redo statement editing back to the last save of the action diagram.

• The diagram supports partially complete statements which provides greater flexibility when editing statements since the diagram only has to be consistent when you want to save changes to the local model.

• You can paste with view substitution, which enables you to choose different views or create new views.

• Code snippets can be saved in a file and then inserted into a different action diagram in the same or a different model.
  

UI Designer

• You can undo/redo edits to the UI design.

• You can use the keyboard to precisely position controls. Co-ordinates can also be entered in the property sheet.

• The size of the window / dialog box being designed is not limited to the size of the monitor.

• Controls can be added to the UI design before the views are created providing a more flexible approach to designing a new dialog.

• You can save standard controls to a snippet file and insert them into a window / dialog from a library of UI snippets.

Web Services

• Design REST and SOAP web service interfaces for Gen server procedure steps, with the definitions stored in the Gen model.

• Generate and Install REST services for CICS and Java platforms. Using a java proxy, the REST services can access any type of Gen server.

• Generate and Install SOAP services for CICS.

Data Structure Design

• The new Data Structure Editor combines the data store and data structure details into a single place to view and edit the database design.

• The new Synchronise Data Structure tool is available to synchronise the data structure with the data model.

• You can specify rules for how Studio Developer allocates names to attribute TD names, tablespaces, link tables, indexes, RI constraints and foreign key columns using Model Preferences.

• If you modify the identifier of an entity type, you can synchronise the table’s identifying index and associated foreign keys without needing to re-transform the entity type, thus retaining any customisations made to the table and its associated components.

• The functions of the legacy DB2 Partitioning plugin have been incorporated into the tablespace and table editors so a separate plugin is no longer required to define these properties.

Code Generation

• If the generation editor is open when you save a change to an action diagram, window design or screen design, the object changed is automatically flagged for generation and the load module(s) containing it for installation.

• You can flag action blocks that use an action block for generation (for example when import/export views change) using the Generate Used By function.

• You can specify separate generation options for the different types of load modules (online, batch, client, server and window).