Concept : Introduction to Bungee Builder
As a developer new to Bungee, you probably have several questions. This document attempts to anticipate those questions and provide you with some quick answers as well as with links to documents that cover those answers in greater depth. For an overview of the Bungee Systems, see the Building a Bungee-powered Application.
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[edit] Understanding Bungee Builder
Bungee Builder is the application development portion of the world's first end-to-end On-Demand Application System™. Because the Builder runs in a browser, you can access the Builder whenever or wherever you have access to the Internet, achieving on-demand application development and delivery. The Bungee Builder is a web application development suite that is a portion of Bungee Connect, a hosted end-to-end application development, deployment, and delivery system that is 100% Web-based.
Bungee Builder is divided into several functional areas: Tabs, Toolbar, Toolbox, Design Editor, Solution Explorer, Solution Detail, Property Editor, Event Viewer (see below for descriptions).
[edit] Tabs
The top row of Bungee Builder contains a group of tabs that provides access to various pages in the Builder, including Start (Getting Started with Bungee Connect), Design (where you build applications), Staging (where you post and deploy applications), DesignGroups (where you mange DesignGroups), and Preferences (where you set Builder preferences).
You can hide any tabs (except Preferences) that you're not using. Also you can change the order of the tabs. To change the order or hide tabs, go to the Preferences tab and expand Builder Tab Preferences.
To hide a tab, drag the tab name from the Displayed Pages column to the Hidden Pages column. Click Apply Changes.
To reorder the tabs, drag the page names in the Displayed Pages column up or down to create a new order. Click Apply Changes.
[edit] Toolbars
Along the top of the work area are the toolbars. The Toolbar area is context sensitive so only the relevant toolbars are displayed for what you selected in Bungee Builder (the Solution and Run toolbars are always available).
- Solution Toolbar The Solution toolbar contains the following icons (from left to right):
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- New Solution—create a new solution
- Open Solution—open an existing solution
- Close Solution—close an open solution
- Add Project—add a project to the currently opened solution
- Save All—save the currently opened solution
- Run Toolbar The Run toolbar contains the Run button. The Run button is used to simulate running the application you're working on (without compiling or uploading). To run your application, the main form must be open (displayed in the Design Editor)--if a form is not displayed in the design editor, the Run button is inactive).
Note A project may contain several forms. The main form is the form with which the users of the application interact.
[edit] Toolbox
The Toolbox area is context sensitive and dynamically changes depending on what you are working on (forms, Bungee Logic, or pages) in the Design Editor.
- Forms: When working with a form, the Toolbox displays controls and other objects for building a user interface. The controls are grouped to facilitate easy access. When a data element is selected (in the Solution Explorer or Solution Detail), the Toolbox shows, in the Selection category, only the relevant controls for that type of data item. When these controls are dragged onto a form, they are automatically bound to the data element selected.
- Bungee Logic: When working with Bungee Logic (such as when editing a function), the Toolbox contains the relevant programming statements for creating application workflow.
- Pages: Pages (part of the View) are the final application assembly area for any Bungee-powered application. In Bungee Connect, pages are logically subordinate to an AppProject and act as containers for the main forms of your application, just as forms act as containers for controls. In addition, pages are the primary user interface elements for your application at runtime. Pages (and the forms the pages contain) are what an end user first sees when accessing a Bungee-powered application.
[edit] Design Editor
The Design Editor is where you edit forms and Bungee Logic. The content of the Design Editor automatically changes according to what you select in the Solution Explorer and Solution Detail (by double-clicking). When you double-click a class or function, the object opens in the Design Editor so you can use Bungee Logic to create functionality. When you double-click a form, the form opens so you can create a user interface. For each item you open in the Design Editor, a tab is created at the top. You can quickly change what is displayed by selecting the appropriate tab. To close one or more tabs, right-click on the tab and select the appropriate option. To scroll the tabs, use the arrow buttons at the right-top of the Design Editor. You can also close tabs by clicking the close icon next to the scroll arrows.
[edit] Solution Explorer
The Solution Explorer shows, in a tree view, the currently opened solution and projects (a solution may have any number and type of projects within it). When you expand a project, you can see the high-level objects for that project, such as classes, form adapters, and Datasources.
Tip You can create additional tabs at the top of the Solution Explorer for quick access to objects. For example, if you drag a class into the tab area, a tab is created for that class (when you drag an object to the tab area, be sure and drop the object right next to an existing tab--a vertical line will display to indicate a valid drop area).
[edit] Solution Detail
Below the Solution Explorer is the Solution Detail. When you select an object under a project in the Solution Explorer (such as a class), the members of that object (such as fields, forms, and functions) are shown in the Solution Detail, just below the Solution Explorer tree.
[edit] Property Editor
The Property Editor allows you to change properties on objects selected in either the Solution Explorer, Solution Detail, or Design Editor. The properties for an object are organized in categories (tabs) along the top of the Property Editor.
[edit] Event Viewer
The Event Viewer tracks events as you interact with the Bungee Builder. When building an application from cords (pre-existing blocks of functionality), you drag events onto the cords to make them respond to specific actions. For example, to make a cord respond to a double-click event, you drag a double-click event from the Event Viewer onto the cord.
[edit] The Chooser
The Chooser is the dialog you often encounter when you click an ellipsis button [...] on a property. Though the Chooser is filtered to provide you only with the choices most pertinent to the property from which you invoked it, the Chooser often provides access both to your local typelib members (on the Local tab), and the Bungee Runtime typelibs (on the Dependencies tab). The Chooser allows you to select typelib members (whether local or Bungee Runtime) as needed to provide the appropriate functionality to set the property from which you invoked the Chooser.
[edit] See Also
Overview : Building a Bungee-powered Application
Exploring Bungee Builder's Feature Set
Hello Bungee Connect