The ARL Editor is the first Eclipse-based tooling released for
Able as we move our Swing development environment to Websphere.
The com.ibm.able.ui zipfile must be separately downloaded from IBM alphaWorks
and installed.
Use Eclipse 2.0 or later drivers which can be obtained at Eclipse.org or downloading
Websphere Studio Workbench 2.0 or by IBM personnel at Jumpstart.
Install the plugin by unzipping it into your Eclipse plugins
directory such as:
C:\Program Files\ECLIPSE20\eclipse\plugins.
This release of the plugin includes the able.jar. Beans in
able.jar are thus accessible from rulesets. Should you wish to
make all beans accessible, copy the ablebeans.jar to replace able.jar
in the directory plugins\com.ibm.able.ui_1.4.0.
The ARL Editor plugin consists of a custom editor for files of
extension .arl, a debug console, and trace views.
- The Able Rule Language perspective defines a standard set
of views for ruleset developers.
- The ARL Editor highlights ARL terms and provides standard
editor function such as cut/copy/paste, undo/redo, and
search/replace. When a ruleset is saved, the ARL parser
updates the tasks list with problems linked to lines in
the ruleset.
- The Outline view shows the major ruleset sections and
lists variables and rules. It is updated when the ruleset
is saved.
- The Rule Console view is used to run or debug rulesets.
In debug mode, rulesets may be stepped through by clause,
rule, or ruleblock.
- The Rule Engine view allows the user to see which rules
fire. The amount of output can be controlled by setting
the level from low to high. Runtime exceptions also
appear in this view.
- The Rule Parse view allows the developers of the parser
for the Able Rule Language to trace parsing execution.
The amount of output can be controlled by setting the
level from low to high. Typical ruleset developers can
ignore or remove this view.
Highlighting is specified for various lines and words and is
currently not customizable. The highlighting scheme follows these
rules of thumb:
- Java keywords are bold magenta, the same as the default
in the Java editor. Examples include: "class",
"import",
"new",
"static",
"void",
"do",
"else".
- ARL keywords are magenta, but not bolded; keywords,
inference methods, fuzzy keywords, fuzzy hedges could be
differentiated in the future. Examples include: "functions", "inputs", "library", "predicates", "ruleset", "setControlParameter", "using", "variables", "and", "not" "backward", "fuzzy", "Beta", "Gaussian", "Linear" "below", "extremely", "slightly", "somewhat"
- Java object types are bold khaki. Examples include:
"Object",
"Numeric",
"Boolean",
"Integer",
"Double",
"Float",
"String".
- ARL object types are khaki. Examples include: "Categorical", "Continuous", "Discrete", "TimeStamp" .
- Rule labels are bold wheat. Examples include: ":", "L1:". The
label must be adjacent to the colon to be highlighted.
- Ruleblock names are bold tuquoise. Examples include:
"catch",
"init",
"process",
"preProcess".
User defined ruleblocks are not highlighted.
- Constants are bold blue. Examples include: "true",
"false".
- Strings are blue; for example: "any
string is blue".
- Comments are green; for example "// comments are green".
- JavaDoc comments are turquoise; for example, /** JavaDoc comments are turquoise */.
- Numbers are default black such as 12345.
We are interested in any feedback you are willing to provide,
whether it is problems you encounter while using this software or
suggestions for future improvements. Please send comments and
questions to ableinfo@us.ibm.com,
post them in the Able discussion forum at http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/able,
or the newsgroup news://forums.ibm.com/forums.software.able.
Internal IBM users may post or subscribe to the software.able
forum at http://w3.ibm.com/forums/forumlookup/forums.software.able.
User suggestions are as follows:
- If developing class files in conjunction
with rulesets, convert the project you develop into a
plugin project. Develop and debug your classes in this
instance of Eclipse. Start a runtime workbench instance
and use the ARL plugin editor in that Eclipse instance to
debug your ruleset.
- Set the able.home property prior to starting Eclipse. On
Windows this can be done by specifying vmargs in the target in the
shortcut properties like this:
"C:\Program
Files\IBM\WebSphere Studio\wsappdev.exe" -vmargs -Dable.home=C:\able_1.5.0
-Dable.prefdir=C:\