Chapter 3. Jadex Starter

The Starter is a central administration tool for managing Jadex agents. It offers basic functionalities for starting and stopping agents as well as more advanced ones for generating documentation and integrity checking of agent and capability models. In Figure 3.1, “Starter perspective” a screenshot of the Starter tool is depicted. The tool mainly consists of three different panels. On the upper left hand side the Model Tree is located. Below the Model Tree the Running Agents of the platform are shown. On the right hand side the Model Panel shows details of the currently selected agent or capability model.

Starter perspective

Figure 3.1. Starter perspective

3.1. Model Tree

The model tree allows for easy navigation of Jadex agent and capability models. Each direct child of the root-node represent a classpath entry of the current project. Initially the model tree is empty.
  • can be used to add a new directory to the model tree and to the classpath from which models are loaded.

  • can be used to remove a directory from the model tree and the classpath.

Within the tree only agents and capability files are displayed according to the icons explained below:
  • represents a Jadex agent model file. By selecting the file in the tree the model will be loaded and displayed in the Model Panel.

  • represents a Jadex capability model file. By selecting the file in the tree the model will be loaded and displayed in the Model Panel.

View refresh.  In addition to the standard start and stop functionalities the model tree also supports more advanced features. If not explicitly turned off in the Model menu the tree is automatically refreshed in certain time intervals. This means that changes on hard-disk are immediately reflected within the model tree. You can also initiate a refreshment directly by clicking the button.

Integrity checking.  In addition all models found in the tree are automatically checked for integrity if this feature isn't turned off in the Model menu. This feature allows to effortlessly locate corrupt agent and capability files in the project. If a corrupt file is found, the file as well as all packages up to the root are marked as corrupt. A corrupt entity is displayed with a red bolt .

Jadexdoc generation.  The Jadexdoc tool allows to generate documentation for agents in a style similar to Javadoc for Java classes. You can invoke the Jadexdoc generation dialog directly from the starter perspective via the button from the toolbar. If you previously have selected an agent or capability model or a package in the model tree this information will be passed to the dialog. The dialog will show this entry as "selected package". After the generation process the HTML output can be opened automatically in a browser. For details about the available options please refer to Chapter 8, Jadexdoc Tool.