How the CHA Editor works

When the CHA Editor initializes, it reads the editor configuration file contained in the project. This file identifies the context, data, and type definition XML files for the project. By default, these files are called dsectxt.xml, dsedata.xml, and dsetype.xml. The CHA Editor loads and parses the definitions contained in these files to build the CHA data structures used by the project applications. The editor's configuration file also contains definitions for the main tags used by the context, data, and type definition files. The CHA Editor displays the CHA contexts, data elements, types, and their definitions in a set of views.

When you make an addition, modification, or deletion to the CHA contexts and data definitions within one view in the CHA Editor, the editor updates the other views to reflect the changes. For example, if you create a CHA context within the CHA page of the Editor view, the editor adds the CHA context to the Outline view and adds the definition for the new CHA context to the CHA definition file.

Note that because Branch Transformation Toolkit does not support forward references (that is, the definition being referred to must appear before the definition making the reference), the order in which definitions appear in the definition files may not match the order used to display the contexts, data elements, and types in the various views of the CHA Editor.