CA Gen Toolset Automation › Plug-ins › Plug-in Application Registration

Plug-in Application Registration

To register an external application as a CA Gen toolset plug-in, set the registry keys at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ComputerAssociates\CA Gen\Plug-ins on Windows 32-bit computer and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\ComputerAssociates\CA Gen\Plug-ins on a Windows 64-bit computer.

The following items will be allowed in the registry:

• Plug-in Application name (required key) - This will be a key that the registry values will be added to. The name will be whatever the developer of the plug-in wishes (probably the name of the application and (or) the name of the company that developed the application).
• MenuItemText (required string value) - The text that will appear in the CA Gen workstation under the Plug-in menu.
• ExeLocation (required string value) - The full path and name of the executable to be run when the menu item is selected.
• StartTran (optional string value) - For CA Gen created plug-in applications, this will be the trancode that will be passed to the load module when the plug-in is executed.  If this value is not specified, then "XXX" will be passed as the trancode.
• Modal (optional string value) – This sting value must be manually created. If this string value is set to Yes or is not specified, the Toolset instance will be locked when a plug-in application is open. If this string value is set to No, the Toolset instance will be unlocked when a plug-in application is open.
• OptionalParameters (optional string value) - This text will be added a parameters to the plug-in. The parameters will be passed before passing any other parameters. For example, this may be used with CA Gen applications to turn on trace mode and (or) set the database value.
• EnableInDiagrams (optional key added under the application name key) - Each key associated with this key will have as its name the name of the diagram as is documented below in the Diagram Names section. If no keys are specified under this key or this key is not there, "All" is assumed.
• EnableSelectedObjectCount (optional string value) - This value will be associated with each diagram key under the "EnableInDiagrams" key and will be either 0, 1, 2, "*" (for 0 or more selected), "?" (for 0 or 1 selected), or "+" (for 1 or more selected). This will indicate that the menu item will be enabled when the selected object count matches the count given here. If this value is not specified, then the menu item will always be enabled and all selected object id parameters will be passed to the plug-in application.
• EnableSelectedObjectTypes (optional key added under a diagram name key) - Each key associated with this key will have as its name the name of a CA Gen metamodel object type.  The names may be found in the Object Decomposition Report which may be accessed through the compiled help file "odrpta.chm".  The name will always start with a "T" and will never be more than eight (8) characters in length.  If prefixing a "T" will make the name longer than eight characters, then the last character is dropped.  For example, to specify a high level entity type object, the metamodel object name is "HLENT" and the text for the key will be "THLENT".  For the metamodel object "ACBLKGRP", the text for the key will be "TACBLKGR".  Associated with each object type key may be the string value "EnableSelectedObjectCount" as described above.  If no value is specified for a specific object type key, then the value specified on the "EnableInDiagrams" key will be used.  If more than one object type key is specified, the menu item is enabled when all object types are selected. For example, consider the following registry key hierarchy:

  	\EnableInDiagrams
  		\DataModelDiagram
  			\THLENT
  				EnableSelectedObjectCount='2'
  				 \TRELMM
  				   EnableSelectedObjectCount='1'
  

The plug-in menu item would only be enabled in the Data Model Diagram when there are two entities and one relationship selected.

The following is an example of what the registry menu hierarchy might look like for a single plug-in. The example is for a plug-in generated by CA Gen that will change the business system in which an object is located. It allows one or more procedures to be selected when the Dialog Design Diagram is open and works on the current action diagram (as long as it is a BSD action diagram) when that tool is open. It also tells the plug-in that it is not using a database and to run trace.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ComputerAssociates\CA Gen
\Plug-ins
	\QAT
MenuItemText="Change Business System"
ExeLocation="c:\Program Files\CA\changebs.exe"
OptionalParameters="/db= /test"
\EnableInDiagrams
	\ActionDiagram
			EnableSelectedObjectCount="0"
		\DialogDesign
			EnableSelectedObjectCount="+"