Functions and features

This section describes some key characteristics of LN Studio.

Activity based development

The software development process in LN Studio is activity based. Each modification that is performed on the software must be linked to an activity. Each activity is part of a software project. A software project is linked to an application. You can create new software projects and activities from the LN Studio, or select existing projects and activities. Administrators can create new applications.

See Activity based development and Applications.

Configuration Management (CM)

Currently the configuration management in LN Studio is based on the Software Configuration Management (SCM) module in Enterprise Server. SCM is based on RCS, a freeware third party tool available for the UNIX and Windows platforms, and supports the Check out and Check in of various types of software components. A more extensive CM solution will be offered in a future release. For details on the usage of SCM, and information on how to set up an SCM environment on the LN server, see To use the Software Configuration Management system (SCM).

Workbench

The LN Studio workbench is based on Eclipse.

This table shows the features of the LN Studio workbench:

Feature Description
Wizards LN Studio contains various wizards that you can use to create software components, such as sessions, menus, labels, libraries and messages.

See Create a New Infor LN Software Component wizard.

You can edit the new components using component-specific Multipage Editors.

Multipage Editors LN Studio contains various multipage editors that you can use to edit software components, such as sessions, menus, labels, libraries and messages.

See Multipage Editors.

Graphical Editors Editors for modeling Business Interfaces and their implementations.
Script editor An editor that supports the 4GL programming language. A content assistant is available, supporting syntax highlighting and completion of keywords. The editor also supports an outline of the scripts or libraries.

See Script Editor.

Activity Explorer view Shows a tree view of the software components in the activity that you have opened, and their relation to each other.

Each activity is part of a software project and is assigned to a user (software engineer). Activities and software projects are stored on the Project Server.

The Activity Explorer shows these components:

  • Additional File
  • Business Object
  • Domain
  • Function
  • Label
  • Library
  • Menu
  • Message
  • Question
  • Report
  • Session
  • Table

The view's shortcut menu enables you to perform Configuration Management related actions, such as check in and check out, on these components.

See Activity Explorer view.

Note: 
  • To create a new software component, you must use the Create a New Infor LN Software Component wizard.
  • To link a software component, which already exists on the LN server, to the activity that you have opened in the Activity Explorer, complete one of these steps:
    • Use the Get command in the Component Explorer view.
    • Use the Select a Software Component command in the LN Studio toolbar.
    • Use the Open Declaration command in the Script Editor.
  • Project Managers can create new activities through the Software Project Explorer view.
Problems view Shows errors and warnings from a project build (compilation).

See Problems view.

Tasks view Shows Eclipse tasks. Each Eclipse task represents an action that must be performed, for example modify a particular line in a script. If a task is associated to (a line in) a script or library, you can double-click the task to edit the script or library. The editor opens the script or library at the involved line.

You can create Eclipse tasks through the Tasks view and from the LN Studio script editor.

See Tasks view, Source Tab, and ToDo Comments.

Verify Components view Shows the warnings that are generated when you verify software components. The verification process performs various checks, based on the LN design principles.

For more information on the verification of software components, see this documentation:
Build option Synchronizes the modified sources with the server, and starts the compilation using the generators and compilers on the server. Any problems that occur during the build process are displayed in the Problems view.
Run / Debug options

The Run command enables you to run sessions from the LN Studio.

The Debug command runs a session in debug mode. You can set breakpoints before you start the Debug command. From the debugger you can execute various debug commands, for example: you can suspend a running session, so that you can inspect it more closely.

See Running LN sessions and Debugging LN sessions.

See LN Studio workbench.
Note: To use LN Studio for customizations, such as changing reports and forms, you do not need an additional license. However, if you want to use LN Studio for development activities, such as creating new tables, editing UI scripts, functions, or libraries, you need a development license, and if necessary source codes.

Some LN Studio functionality depends on the Enterprise Server version of the LN server.

For an example, see Application Search.