Tool Mentor: Managing Process Content Using Rational Process Workbench

Tool Mentors > Rational Process Workbench Tool Mentors > Managing Process Content Using Rational Process Workbench

Purpose

This tool mentor describes how to manage your content when you develop your own process material.

This tool mentor relates to the Rational Unified Process information:

Overview

The Rational Process Workbench (RPW) allows you to create new HTML files based on provided templates. This allows you to author process content—either inside or outside of RPW's control—with your preferred HTML editor.

Most process HTML files have presentation names. These are the names by which files are represented in published Web sites. RPW supports changing the presentation names in a separate user interface.

During publishing RPW processes hyperlinks encountered in the text material and updates them with their appropriate presentation names. This means you can use spontaneous hyperlinks in your process text. If a particular process closure, however, does not include the file designated by a hyperlink, RPW disables the hyperlink as it processes the file during publishing.

Web Site Forms provide the "static" portions of generated Web sites, which are those portions that do not vary with the closure of the generated process. RPW supports composing Web Site Forms using the same paradigm it does for content files in general, and allows you to modify the set of files and folders of which it's comprised.

Tool Steps

Manage your process content following these steps:

Create and edit content pages
Synchronize a Process Content Library with its process model
Translate a Process Content Library into a different language
Manage Web Site Forms

1. Create and edit content pages

Content pages provide the text descriptions of process elements. As you develop your process material, you need to create new pages to describe the new process elements you create, or you need to add or replace files for existing elements.

The content pages reside in a Process Content Library (PCL). Content pages are ordinary HTML pages with some additional RPW constructs embedded in them. These constructs are clearly marked in the files and must not be modified or removed.

RPW does not include an HTML editor. It does, however, support template-based creation of new pages in the PCL, as well as navigation from the Rational Rose modeling space to an HTML editor. This allows you to create new content files from your modeling context, and to navigate back and forth between your modeling and authoring activities.

Refer to the topic titled Creating and editing content pages in the RPW online Help for detailed information.

2. Synchronize a Process Content Library with its process model

A PCL and its process model are considered to be synchronized if all file references existing in the process model are satisfied by the PCL. RPW provides a function that determines whether a process model is synchronized with its associated PCL, which operates at any level inside of your process model, from the entire process model down to individual process elements.

Refer to the topic titled Synchronizing a Process Content Library with its Process Model in the RPW online Help for detailed information.

3. Translate a Process Content Library into a different language

A PCL can be translated into different languages, retaining the associations to its process model. Conversely, this also means that the same process model can serve as the model for multiple translations of its PCL.

Refer to the topic titled Translating a Process Content Library into a different language in the RPW online Help for detailed information.

4. Manage Web Site Forms

The Web Site Form is a collective term for the invariable portions of a published process—those portions that are not published by RPW, but exist there to provide the context for your process. The Web Site Form is comprised of a collection of folders and individual files that reside in the Content Library.

Most notably, a tree.dat file exists that specifies the layout of the static portions of presented tree browsers.

RPW defines a «process» process element, which is the element type on which Web Site Forms are defined. The Web Site Form File Association dialog is used for this purpose and allows for the association of any number of anonymous folders and files. The only mandatory element in a Web Site Form is the "tree browser folder", which is the folder that contains the definition of the initial pre-generation tree browser and other associated files.

In a generated process Web site, all files referenced from the non-generated portions of the tree browser need to be included in the published material. This applies to all sections except Disciplines, Artifacts, Roles, and Activities, and Tools. Every page referenced, directly or indirectly, by the tree browser must be included in the Web Site Form definition.

To facilitate the process development stage, you might want to define an alternative, smaller Web Site Form—one that excludes the many files included in your production-quality Web Site Form.

Note: The tree.dat file in your tree browser folder needs to be updated in tandem with any changes to the Web Site Form to ensure that the files in the tree.dat file references are actually present in the published Web site. They become present in the published Web site if they were directly specified as a file or indirectly specified through their enclosing folder.

Refer to the topic titled Managing Web Site Forms in the RPW online Help for detailed information.

For More Information

For detailed information on this procedure, see Chapter 5, "Managing process content" in the Developing Process Using Rational Process Workbench manual.

Rational Unified Process