IBM Rational Method Composer Release Notes

Version 7.2 iFix003

Introduction

Rational Method Composer 7.2 iFix003 is an update to IBM® Rational® Method Composer (RMC) 7.2. A summary of defects fixed in this release is provided below.

The IBM Rational Method Composer 7.2 Release Notes can be downloaded from the IBM Publications Center at http://www.ibm.com/shop/publications/order. Select your country, then select Search for Publication using the publication number GC23-6208-02.The Rational Method Composer 7.2 Release Notes can also be found at [INSTALLDIR]/rmc/readme/readme.html.

Refer to IBM Rational Method Composer Installation Guide for instructions on how to install Rational Method Composer 7.2, upgrade libraries, and uninstall the product. The Installation Guide (install.html) can be found at [INSTALLDIR]/rmc/readme. It can also be obtained from the IBM Publications Center by searching for publication number GI11-8260-02.

Corrections and additions to documentation

The following are additions and corrections to documentation for Rational Method Composer 7.2.

Permanent and trial license installation

If you have purchased or are otherwise entitled to use Rational Method Composer, you are entitled to a permanent product license. Beginning with Rational Method Composer 7.2, the default installation of Rational Method Composer instantiates a trial license.

As a result, permanent license users must perform two steps: (1) install Rational Method Composer (which provides a trial license); (2) activate the installation to use a permanent license. To activate the permanent license, use the Manage Licenses wizard. For more information on managing licenses for your Rational product, see the Rational licensing support page at: http://www-306.ibm.com/software/rational/support/licensing/.

If you are entitled to a permanent license and receive warnings about trial license expiration, a permanent license for the installation must be activated. After activating the license you will have a permanent installation and will no longer receive trial license expiration warnings.

Trial licenses expire 30 days after installation. Trial license users who upgrade to a permanent version do not need to uninstall or reinstall Rational Method Composer -- users need only activate the existing installation.

For related information, see “Managing Licenses,” in the IBM Rational Method Composer 7.2 Installation Guide.

Correction to the Installation Guide for Rational Method Composer 7.2: No support for floating licenses

The IBM Rational Method Composer Installation Guide 7.2 includes references to floating license support for release 7.2. Floating licenses are not supported for Rational Method Composer.

Correction to the Release Notes for Rational Method Composer 7.2

Item 20 in the Known Issues section of the release notes, Controlling the behavior of the Back button when navigating in a published site, contains an error in the pathname of the file that contains this app setting. The pathname is theme/appSetting.js. The corrected text is:

20. When navigating from one page to another in a published site and you click the Back button, the previous page is returned but not to the previous scroll location in that page. This is because there are two ways to return to a previous page. One is to retrieve the cached page and the other is to reload the page. By default, Rational Method Composer 7.2 has the bookmark feature enabled and reloads the page. You can change this with an app setting in the theme/appSetting.js file.

  1. Open the theme/appSetting.js file in an editor.
  2. Locate the line: theApp.settings.enableBookmark=true.
  3. Change the value to false to enable page caching.

Additions to Help

Documentation for the following features has been added or modified in Help.

Installing the iFix update

If you have already installed Rational Method Composer 7.2, you can apply this update by following these instructions:

  1. Close Rational Method Composer.
  2. Start the IBM Installation Manager by selecting Start > All Programs > IBM Installation Manager > IBM Installation Manager.
  3. Click Update Packages. The Installation Manager checks for updates. If a new version of Installation Manager is available, you must install it before you can continue the Rational Method Composer installation. Click Yes at prompt to update Installation Manager. If your Installation Manager is current, go to step 5.
  4. Click OK at the prompt to restart Installation Manager. Click Update Packages.
  5. From the page Select a package group to search for updates, select IBM Rational and IBM Rational_1. Click Next.
  6. From the page Select the updates for fixes to install, verify the Version 7.2.0.0_ifix3 check box is selected. Click Next.
  7. Accept the license agreement and click Next.
  8. At the Review update information page, click Update.
  9. When the update completes and you are informed that packages were installed successfully, click Finish to close the Update Packages windows.
  10. Exit the IBM Installation Manager.
  11. Confirm the update was successful by using the Help menu in Rational Method Composer and selecting About IBM Rational Method Composer. You should see: Version: 7.2.0 iFix3.

Removing the update

To remove updates, follow these instructions:

  1. Close Rational Method Composer.
  2. Start the IBM Installation Manager by selecting Start > All Programs > IBM Installation Manager.
  3. Click Roll Back Packages to display the Roll Back Packages window.
  4. From the page Select a package group to search for packages to roll back, select IBM Rational. Click Next.
  5. From the page Select the packages you want to roll back to, select a version that has been installed on your machine to roll back, then click Next.
  6. From the page Review rollback information, click Rollback. A progress bar is displayed.
  7. When the update completes and you are informed that packages were rolled back successfully, click Finish to close the Update Packages windows.
  8. Exit IBM Installation Manager.

Defects fixed in this release

The following table lists significant defects fixed in this release.

APAR/ID Description / Comments
PK53719 Japanese font corruption in Activity Diagram
PK56802 Task Main description and Step description are not displayed in German RMC 7.2
PK59042 Inconsistent data returned when reporting in RMC
PK59103 Activity (Detail) Diagram: hyperlink to task descriptor description is missing.
PK61109 Cannot build a repository for ifix2 (rmc72-ifix2.update.zip) using PU
PK61302 Published html site is not displaying anything
PK61451 Elements with umlauts in element names have dysfunctional hyperlinks in deployed WAR files
RATLC00396922 Deep-copy of patterns does not automatically synchronize against target process configuration
RATLC01250026 WBM: Role resource in task of a WBM process is missing after import to RMC

Defects fixed in release 7.2 iFix002

The following table lists significant defects fixed in release 7.2 iFix002. These changes are also included in this release.

APAR/ID Description / Comments
PK53719 Japanese font corruption in Activity Diagram
PK53720 Directory Not Found Error if Names for Capability pattern is in Japanese
PK53870 RMC: Network Connection is not available under workbench preferences
PK54570 RMC: Activity diagram does not show in browsing perspective or published content
PK55220 Artifacts in ADD are not generated correctly
PK55169 Activity diagrams are published when the options are disabled
RATLC00395486 Cannot extend and copy from Delivery Processes anymore
RATLC00396350 Need to use more MSP text fields for the work product descriptors when exporting processes into an MSP xml file

Announcements and known issues

The following announcements and known issues apply to this release.

Announcements

Deep copy of selected configurations is now supported

The New Tailoring Session Wizard includes a new check box that allows you to select a configuration to use for deep copy. Only configurations that contain the selected source delivery process are listed. Previously, deep copy operated only on the default configuration and copied every element. With this new option you have a greater degree of control over which items will be copied.

Contributed and replaced activities are copied with deep-copy

When performing a deep-copy on processes under a non-default configuration, contributed and replaced activities are also copied. This is true for the process editor as well as the tailoring perspective editor and the initial tailoring wizard.

For example, from the Authoring perspective:

  1. Create a process in the authoring perspective.
  2. Select and drag a capability pattern that has contributing activities under the configuration selected in the toolbar box.
  3. You are informed that the pattern has external activity contributions or replacements and asked whether to copy the original pattern or the contribution.
  4. Based on the selection, the appropriate elements are copied and synchronized against the currently selected configuration.

Adding new content elements to a tailoring plug-in is supported

You can add new content elements to a tailoring plug-in. This is done by using the Custom Contents package which is created automatically when a new Tailoring plug-in is created.

  1. Open the tailoring plug-in in the Authoring perspective and locate the default package, Custom Contents.
  2. Create a Method element in that package. The newly-added element will be shown in the tailoring configuration view.

Changes to consistency checking in the configuration editor

Previously, a consistency check was performed after each edit was completed in the configuration editor. For large configurations, this could degrade performance. Automatic consistency checking is no longer performed. Instead, a new option, Show Configuration Errors (visible in the upper-right corner of the configuration editor page), is available. This option allows you to specifically request that a consistency check be performed. A complete consistency check is also done when you save a configuration.

RMC on-line help export to a Web application server is now supported

You can now export on-line help to a Web application server. The hosting machine must have a valid Rational Method Composer license registered through the Installation Manager.

  1. On a host machine, download the Eclipse platform runtime binary and unzip it to a folder such as D:\myApp.
  2. Install the Rational Method Composer help plug-in and its dependencies by copying them from the installed Rational Method Compose into the plugins directory or your Eclipse runtime. Typically, these are located in the plugins directory in C:\Program Files\IBM\SDPShared.. Copy the following folders:
    com.ibm.cic.licensing.common.core
    com.ibm.cic.licensing.common.util
    com.ibm.cic.licensing.common
    com.ibm.cic.licensing.lum.win32
    com.ibm.cic.licensing.lum
    com.ibm.rmc.common
    com.ibm.rmc.help.doc
  3. On the host machine, run the Eclipse Infocenter. For example:
    java -classpath D:\myApp\eclipse\plugins\org.eclipse.help.base_[version].jar
    org.eclipse.help.standalone.Infocenter -command start -eclipsehome d:\myApp\eclipse -port 8081
  4. On a Web server machine, edit the httpd.conf file to configure the Apache server to be a reverse-proxy to the host machine. For example:
    # These commands are for Apache 2.2
    LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so
    LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so
    ProxyRequests off
    <Proxy*>
    Order deny,allow
    Allow from all
    </Proxy>
    ProxyPass /rmc_online_help http://hostmachine:8081/help
    ProxyPassReverse /rmc_online_help http://hostmachine:8081/help
  5. Access the help through a browser at http://<apache.machine>/rmc_online_help/index.jsp

Known issues

Check in folder contents when renaming a folder under source control

When you rename a folder under source control, the folder and its contents are checked out. When you check in a renamed folder, you must also check in the folder's contents even if those files were not renamed, that is, you must check in all elements that have been renamed or whose pathname has been changed.

For example, if you rename a capability pattern, you are prompted to check out the folder and its related .xmi files. If, after renaming the folder, you then undo the checkout for related .xmi files, the system will not be able to find those files under the new pathname. Check-in the .xmi files to assure that the renamed folder is recorded as part of the pathname of the .xmi files.

Error when importing plug-ins or configuration projects into a workspace library

When importing existing plug-in and configuration projects into an empty workspace library from Rational ClearCase Remote Client, the Problem view reports URI errors. To fix this error, close and reopen the workspace library after the import.

Deep copy of a process or creation of a tailoring process can fail when not all required plug-ins exist or are imported

If you make a deep copy of a process, or create a tailoring process from a set of imported plug-ins, and the process's configuration contains plug-ins that are not imported or references to plug-ins that do not exist, then the deep copy or tailoring process creation fails if the process being copied contains references to those missing plug-ins.

To resolve the problem: (1) import all plug-ins required by the process, or (2) follow these steps to fix reported errors and then make the deep copy again:

  1. Open the Problem View and right-click an error item.
  2. Click Quick Fix to populate a Quick Fix window.
  3. Select Resolve this unresolved reference in the Select a fix section.
  4. Click Find Similar Problem, select all found items, and click OK.

Adding a workspace library to source control

If you use a workspace-based library outside a Rational ClearCase dynamic view and then use the Share project option to add a plug-in or project to a Rational ClearCase dynamic view, you must reload the library to prevent errors in subsequent operations.

Supported integrations

Rational Method Composer 7.2 and later supports the following integrations:

Legal notices

Legal notices for IBM Rational Method Composer are provided in the file notices.html in the installation directory. Please refer to this file for applicable legal notices.

Feedback

Please contact your IBM representative or send email to rupfeed@us.ibm.com

©  Copyright IBM Corp. 2005, 2008 All Rights Reserved