Reference Information › User Interface Reference Guide › Graphical User Interface › Infrastructure Editor › Editing Applications › Infrastructure Editor Connections

Infrastructure Editor Connections

Once you have a few instances, you can also connect them. Appliances can be connected by connecting their terminals (the named "arrows" that stick out of the appliance shape). You connect two appliances by clicking on the terminals you want to connect: Click the output first, then the input you want it connected to.

The mouse cursor will provide clues as to what connections are allowed. When you move the mouse cursor over a connection, the connection line highlights to help identify the connection line from other connection lines on the canvas. Many outputs can be connected to a single input. Each output, however, can be connected to exactly one input. It is even possible (but rarely useful) to connect the output of an appliance to an input of the same appliance.

When multiple outputs are connected to a single input, the editor reduces visual clutter by joining the connections with as few lines as possible. Whenever a connection joins an existing connection, the editor places a small dot, indicating the joining of connections.

You can route the connections manually by dragging their corners up/down or left/right. Once you position the mouse cursor on a connection corner, it will give you visual clue as to what directions are allowed. You can also add a segment to the connection route, which will allow you to make a route that passes around another appliance.

You can perform the following operations over a connection by right-clicking on the connection and selecting from the menu:

• Add a Segment
• Convert to Balloon Connection
• Convert to Standard Connection
• Re-route the Connection (automatic re-route, useful to simplify connections)
• Rename the Connection
• Delete the Connection

For more information about what the connections mean at runtime and the benefits of using connections, see the CA AppLogic® Overview Guide.

Selection

You can select one or more appliances to perform operations.

Select Appliance

Before performing operations on an appliance, you must select it by clicking on the appliance.

Add Appliance to the appliance group

You must add the appliance to the currently selected appliance group.

Click the appliance while holding the Ctrl key.

The appliance is added.

Note: Drawing a rectangle on the canvas around several appliances selects all the appliances in that rectangle.

The Infrastructure Editor displays the current selection with dashed line. Once you select multiple appliances, you can do the following:

• Move them as a group. The Infrastructure Editor will keep the connection routing between the selected appliances and re-route the connections between the selected appliances and the non-selected appliances.
• Delete the appliances by pressing the Del key on the keyboard
• Cut or copy the appliance group to the clipboard

Annotations

You can add one or more notes or annotations to the application such as describing usage of various appliances in its architecture.

The following describes how to work with an annotation:

• Create an annotation by clicking the Annotation button on the toolbar.
• Edit the annotation by clicking the created text box.
• Change the color of the background by clicking the icons in the bottom left corner of the annotation text box.
• Resize the annotation text box by clicking the lower right corner of the annotation text box and then dragging the mouse.
• Change the color of the text background by clicking the icons in the lower left corner of the text box.