Tool Mentor: Setting Up for a Project Using Rational XDE Developer
- .NET Edition
Purpose
This tool mentor describes how to set up the Rational XDE modeling environment for a project.
This section provides links to additional information related to this tool mentor.
Overview
Setting up XDE for a project means laying the foundation that enables team members to work on the same model at the same time. Developing complex systems requires that groups of analysts, architects, and developers have the ability see and access the "big picture" at the same time as they are working on their own portion of that picture-simultaneously. Successfully managing an environment in which multiple team members have different kinds of access to the same model requires:
- formulating a working strategy for managing team activity
- having the tools that can support that strategy
The following basic steps lay this foundation:
- Tailor XDE Templates and Defaults (optional)
- Create XDE Projects and Models
- Partition the XDE Models into Controlled Units
Tailor XDE Templates and
Defaults (optional) 
In the steps that follow, you create XDE models using standard templates, that include a basic packaging structure that follows the Rational XDE Model Structure Guidelines.
You can optionally create your own specialized templates. Rational XDE lets you set properties and options such as default fonts, colors, line styles, file storage options, the ways in which stereotypes and other information are presented, and the profiles that are applied.
For more information, refer to .
Create XDE Projects and XDE Models
The term "project" is primarily used in RUP to refer to the entire software development effort. In Microsoft .NET, the overall software development is called the "Solution." A Solution is composed of one or more XDE projects (or more precisely, .NET projects) that contain XDE models, source code, and other files.
Similarly, the "model" artifacts in RUP are conceptual artifacts that could be composed of multiple XDE models spanning multiple XDE projects.
Add additional models to your project as required, by following the steps in , using the Rational XDE Model Structure Guidelines as a guide.
For more information, refer to .
Partition
the XDE Models into Controlled Units
XDE supports dividing an XDE model into manageable pieces by letting you partition an XDE model into separate files called controlled units.
For more information, refer to .
