Version 6.3.13 for Windows
 —  Extending Natural Studio with Plug-ins  —

Plug-in Example

The Natural Studio plug-in example demonstrates how the Natural Studio metastructure can be extended with plug-ins that define your own object types, assign commands to them and display objects as nodes in tree views and list views.

The plug-in example shows information about the Natural application programming interfaces contained in the library SYSEXT. It allows users to list their documentation and to execute a test program for each of the application programming interfaces.

The source code of the plug-in example is delivered in the library SYSEXPLG. It is intended to give an impression of how plug-ins can be implemented with Natural Studio.

The following topics are covered below:


Activating the Plug-in Example

The plug-in example is installed automatically during Natural Studio installation. Initially, the activation of plug-ins is disabled. Therefore, in order to use the plug-in example, you must first enable plug-in activation and then activate the plug-in example.

Start of instruction setTo activate the plug-in example

  1. Make sure that plug-in activation has been enabled. See Workspace Options in the documentation Using Natural Studio.

  2. Invoke the Plug-in Manager as described in Invoking the Plug-in Manager in the documentation Using Natural Studio.

  3. In the Plug-in Manager window, select Plug-in Example.

  4. Activate the plug-in example as described in Activating and Deactivating a Plug-in in the documentation Using Natural Studio.

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Using the Plug-in Example

When the plug-in example has been activated in the Plug-in Manager, the following additional elements are available in the Natural Studio window.

Menu Commands

The Tools menu provides the cascading menu Plug-in Example with the following commands:

Command Description
Open Tree View If an application programming interface (subprogram USRnnnnN), its description (text member USRnnnnT) or its test program (program USRnnnnP) is selected in library SYSEXT, this command displays information about this application programming interface in a tree view window. If none of the above is selected, this command displays information about all application programming interfaces in a tree view window.
Open List View Displays the same information as above in a list view window.

Context Menus

The cascading menu Plug-in Example with the above commands is available in the context menus of the Natural object types program, subprogram and text.

Toolbar

An additional toolbar is shown. The toolbar buttons represent the following menu commands:

Toolbar button

Open Tree View

Toolbar button

Open List View

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