Presentation

Overview

This user guide will be presented in a tutorial way rather than in a list of screen and features description.
The application that we use is the famous "CafeTownsend" Cairngorm demo application, used throughout Cairngorm tutorials, and that can be found here:http://www.cairngormdocs.org/exampleApps/CafeTownsend.zip
This web site is a good source of information and documentation for Cairngorm beginners, you would like to check the Cairngorm Diagram Explorer here : http://www.cairngormdocs.org/tools/CairngormDiagramExplorer.swf

We will then study how this simple application works with the help of the console, hence discovering at the same time its screens and features.

The main features of CairngormConsole are listed below:

• List of all Cairngorm operations and events
• Watch of ModelLocator contents and changes (binding and collection change events)
• Log and history of commands runs
• Log and history of HTTPServices request
• Inspection of relevant objects
• Stacktraces on all events and important operations
• Connexion with KapInspect through popup menu

To follow the tutorial, you will have to lauch the demo application here: http://lab.kapit.fr/demo/cairngormconsole/prod/index.html

Easy integration

The quickest way to integrate the console into your main application MXML file is:

• Copy "CairngormConsole.swc" file into the "lib" directory of your project, and declare it to be used into your project
• In your main application file:
  • Add the correct namespace declaration (altough it may be done automatically by code completion)
  • Add a new MWML tag such as:

    <kapit:CairngormConsole modelLocator="{myModelLocator}"/>
    

    Notice that you have to explicitely transmit the instance of the ModelLocator used in your application.

This technique will allow you to quickly see the console in action. However, for a production build, you would not like to leave the console in the byte code, and a little more work is needed to do this properly.
Please refer to the Integration Guide that explains in greater details the various ways to integrate CairngormConsole into your application, and how to manage development and release builds.

Starting the console

When we start the demo application the console will load directly. This has been added, as in normal cases you will start the console with a keyboard shortcut, which is by default:

• For PC/Windows users:
  • Ctrl+Alt+F5
  • Ctrl+Alt+Click
• For MAC/OSX users:
  • Cmd+Shift+F5
  • Cmd+Shift+Click

Notice that the "click" shortcut will launch at the same time all KapIT consoles embedded within your application (typically KapInspect). They may overlap as they are initially centered on the screen.
The first shortcut is exclusively used by Cairngorm Console, and may be specified using the "shortcut" attribute of CairngormConsole startup class.
In the demo application, we used the "CairngormConsole.getInstance().showPopup()" static method to display the popup after application loading is complete.
For more information, see the note here

tip You do not need to open the console in order to start registering events. Events will be registered as soon as the CairngormConsole instance will have been instanciated. However, if you want to watch the various flows and events update in real time, you will obviously have to keep the console opened.

Next >> Event flow