Display Item

Description

Indicates that a step’s Wait for Completion parameter is set to Yes.

A small blue square to the left of a component icon indicates that the component has not been configured.

Processing mode:

• A solid line indicates a linear connection between steps.

• A dotted line indicates a parallel connection between steps.

• A broken line indicates a stand-alone connection between steps.

When marking a flow as auto start, the Auto Start icon will appear above the Trigger area.

When marking a flow as auto repeat, the Auto Repeat icon will appear above the Trigger area.

When a step has a breakpoint defined, a red dot will appear next to the step.

When a step is defined as suspended, an X will appear next to it.

The GoTo icon indicates that this step is actually a pointer to another step in the flow. This is a simple way to reuse code that already exists in the flow.

When you select the component that goes to another component, Magic xpi displays a dashed line pointing to the component to be executed next.

Element

Description

Instances/Steps

• You can drag one or more components from the Components Pane into a flow. Each component represents an instance or step in a flow.

• You can press Ctrl+F or go to the Edit menu and select Find Name to open the Find dialog box. You can use this functionality to find the first step that contains the search string.

Processing Mode

• A flow can only execute one linear path, or branch, at a time. You can determine this path using flow logic.

• A flow can have several parallel steps in each level of the flow.

Collapse/Expand Branches

• If you have created long flows in the Flow Editor, you can collapse and expand the various branches. This allows you to see more of the flow without scrolling down.

• To collapse a branch, you should right-click on the first step of the branch that you want to collapse, and select Collapse from the context menu.

• If you want to reverse this, you should right-click on the step, and select Expand or Expand All from the context menu. A plus (+) sign next to the step indicates that the branch can be expanded. A minus (-) sign indicates that the branch can be collapsed.

• When you collapse a branch, all steps and branches under the selected step are collapsed.

• The state of the last collapsed or expanded steps are saved in an external file outside the project. When you open a project, the previous state of the branches is restored using the data that was saved to the file.

• You can also collapse or expand branches by parking on the relevant step and selecting Collapse or Expand from the Edit menu.
  
  Since version: V3

Flow Logic

• You indicate flow logic by specifying conditions using the Expression Editor. To access the Expression Editor, right-click a component where you want to add flow logic and then select Condition from the shortcut menu.

Text Areas

• You can use a Text Area to add labels to identify the various steps that form a flow.

• Insert a Text Area by selecting Text Area from the Insert menu. Once you select the tool, you then draw the Text Area where required and enter the desired text.

• You can resize the Text Area by selecting the area and dragging the sizing handle to the desired size.

• You can minimize or maximize Text Areas by selecting either Minimize All Text Areas or Maximize All Text Areas from the Edit menu.