The Files Locations Dialog

Matrex is distributed with a set of function templates to work with common problems. You can add more templates if you need them, downloading one of the add-ons from the Matrex download site and installing it.

To be able to install correctly new templates it is important to understand what exactly is a template. A template is composed by:

• the template definition which contains a description of the template and defines its input and output parameters. Each definition is saved in a file, called template definition file. These files are stored in directories.
• the template code, that contains the code to execute the template function. The code can be in form of either:
  
  • one or more Java classes (as the rest of Matrex). The classes are stored in directories or as jar files.
  • a script (e.g. Jython, JRuby, Groovy...). Scripts are stored in directories.

The templates that come with the Matrex distribution are contained in the root directory of Matrex. There are anyway reasons to have additional directories for this files:

• You want to build new templates.
• You want install a Matrex add-on (plugin) which contains additional templates.

One way to do it is to add the additional template files, classes and scripts to the root directory of Matrex, as it was happening with previous versions of Matrex.

The problems with this are:

• You need to change the content of the root directory of Matrex. This is not a good practice and in general the operating system does not allow it for safety reason.
• Mixing original and additional templates in the same directories can generate confusion.

The Files Location Dialog Matrex solves this problem by allowing to define additional directories for templates definition files, templates code in form of java classes and scripts.

The dialog contains 3 panels:

• Templates code (formerly named Plugins) is used to select the directories and jar files containing the templates' java classes, excluding the jar files coming with the Matrex distributions. If these classes have some dependencies (jars or directories), they can be added here.
  This panel edits the content of the plugins.cld configuration file.
  
• Templates definitions is used to select the directories containing the templates definitions files, included the ones coming with the Matrex distribution. This panel edits the content of the templates.cld configuration file.
• Scripts is used to select the directories containing the scripts used as code of the script based templates. This panel edits the content of the scripts.cld configuration file.

To add a jar file press the Add Jar button. It opens a standard Open File dialog that allows you to select the jar file to add.
To add a directory press the Add Directory button. It opens a standard Open Directory dialog that allows you to select the directory to add.
Selecting one or more rows� (directories or jar files) and pressing the Remove button, the rows are removed from the file.

The changes are not commited to the configuration files until you press the Save button, which also closes the dialog.
To close the dialog without saving the changes in the plugins.ld file, press the Cancel button