Introducing the ABL GUI Designer

The new improved seamless AppBuilder integration makes Developer Studio a one-stop solution for developing and maintaining ABL GUI applications.

The AppBuilder integration introduces a new design editor for designing AppBuilder GUI applications called ABL UI Designer. This design editor allows developers to draw widgets and generate source code, similar to the Visual Designer that is used to build GUI for .NET applications.

The following OpenEdge AppBuilder capabilities can be accessed from within the Developer Studio:

• OpenEdge AppBuilder perspective to build AppBuilder GUI applications within an OpenEdge project.
• AppBuilder options available as AppBuilder preferences and project properties in the Developer Studio. These options allow developers to control the behavior of AppBuilder and ABL UI Designer such as Dynamics, Editor, Grid Units, and Widget ID settings.
• ABL GUI applications are OpenEdge project-aware. That is, developer can set common properties for all the ABL GUI applications defined in an OpenEdge project using AppBuilder properties.
• AppBuilder templates and wizards to develop new ABL GUI applications. Stand-alone AppBuilder templates and wizards run embedded in Eclipse standard wizards from within the Developer Studio.
• Design ABL GUI applications using the ABL UI Designer editor which extends the native AppBuilder functionality such as dock-able widget palette, look and feel of Visual Designer editor, hierarchical widget Outline view, and synchronization between the AB UI Designer and ABL Editor.
• Improved ABL Editor to make sections of the AppBuilder-generated code read-only and foldable. This ensures that developers do not inadvertently modify the AppBuilder-generated code while editing the ABL application code is the ABL Editor.
• AppBuilder Section Editor to view specific block of code using the object nodes created in the Outline view. You can use the Section Editor Toggle button to enable or disable the Section Editor capability.
• Progress Dynamics features such as Open Dynamics Object, Register to Repository, Save Dynamics Object as Static, Save Static Object as Dynamic, and Open Associate Procedure.
• PRO*Tools utilities categorized into these three menu options: General PRO*Tools, AppBuilder PRO*Tools, and ADM2 PRO*Tools.

The OpenEdge AppBuilder can either run embedded in Progress Developer Studio for OpenEdge or as a standalone application.