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WDSC Tips on Configurability and Auto Incrementing

Tips to dock your Perspective and View buttons and auto increment a DB2 column using SQL

As I continue with my series of tips for WebSphere* Development Studio Client (WDSC), let’s examine the configurability of Perspective and View, and an auto incrementing feature for DB2*.

Docking Perspective and View Buttons

Have you ever used a software package where you knew where everything was (e.g., buttons, menu options, etc.) and then the next version came out with everything changed? Sometimes I think cameras are somewhere in my office because it frustrates me to no end when things get moved around for no apparent reason. When WDSC initially came out, Perspective and View docking locations were on the far left of the editor but, in a subsequent release, IBM moved the Perspective dock to the top of the editor and the View dock to the bottom. Figure 1, Step 1 gives an example of what WSDC 7.x looks like out of the box. Fortunately, this is easily changed.

The good thing about Eclipse-based WDSC is that it’s highly configurable. So the first thing I do when I create a new workspace is move the Perspective and View docks to a more efficient location—on the left side of the main WDSC window. You can move the Perspective dock by right-clicking on it and selecting Doc On>Left, as shown in Figure 1, Step 2. You can move the View dock the same way. Note that finding the right place to right-click on the View dock is a little tricky so keep trying until you get the menu shown in Figure 1, Step 3.

You can add other views to the View dock by right-clicking on any given tab and selecting “Fast View” as shown in Figure 1, Step 4. Fast views are great because they let you clean up the WDSC window by docking views (aka tabs) that you don’t use a lot but also don’t want to completely close because you want quick access to them. Figure 1, Step 5 shows the newly organized Perspective and View docks on the left side of the WDSC window. Clicking on a perspective button will change the views displayed. For example, when I click on the Remote Systems Explorer button, I see views appropriate to that perspective (e.g., iSeries* Job Log and iSeries Error List, in this case). When I click on a View button that’s docked, it expands out onto the WDSC window for me to work with it. To have the view go back to the dock and minimize itself, simply click in a different location of the WDSC window. I find this approach very favorable for the iSeries Error List as it pops out automatically after a compile. I can then double-click an error entry and it redocks itself and positions me in the LPEX editor to the error I selected. It’s very efficient.

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