Progress Developer Studio for OpenEdge allows you to open generated files in external editors and to customize a workstep or another application file in the selected external editor. For Activity worksteps with a Custom presentation or for user-created Adapter worksteps, you can use the Default (Notepad) and Wordpad as external editor options. This feature is not available for other workstep types.
Note: You can also use the External Editor feature to open Text files using Notepad as the default editor, Excel files using Excel as the default editor, and PDF files using Adobe Acrobat as the default editor. To configure these external editors to your requirements, navigate to DesignerFileTypes.xml in the Workspace_Home\.com.savvion.studio\conf\resources\designer folder.
To use an external editor for customizing Activity (with Custom presentations) or Adapter worksteps (that are not predefined):
1. Right-click the Activity or Adapter workstep that you want to customize, point to the Open With option, and then select an external editor option.
Note: In order to use an external editor, the application file must be a custom JSP presentation form. You cannot use an external editor for worksteps with a Default presentation form.
The file is generated, then opened in the specified external editor: for example, in WordPad.
Note: BPM CustomUI API tags are now delimited by {}, instead of the previously used <>. Progress Developer Studio for OpenEdge continues to recognize BPM CustomUI API tags with <>.
2. Select the fields to be edited, and apply customizations that can include changing the background color or adding a border, or modifying or deleting dataslots.
3. Save the file in the external editor. Close the external editor.
4. To view the customized interfaces from Progress Developer Studio for OpenEdge, open the customized form’s file from its folder in the Project Explorer view; for instance, open the Activity1.jsp file from the JSP folder.
5. Publish the application as described in Publishing an application . To republish the customized interfaces without reinstalling the applications, select the Copy files to Server only option in the Publish wizard.
6. Select the Go to Business Process Portal check box to view the customized interfaces in your Web browser.
