Tour of the Workbench GUI

When you start Workbench, The home window opens.

When you start Workbench, The home window opens.

Figure 1. Home view

The home view is divided into seven areas:

Menu bar — contains available program menus.
Figure 2. Menu bar


Many of the menus are context-sensitive and only appear when certain views are active. In a station connection, the Quick Search field displays on the right-side of the menu bar when the SearchService is installed on the connected station.

Tool bar — contains icons for typical interaction with the interface plus icons specific to the view currently in use. Hovering the mouse pointer over an icon invokes a tool tip. The tool bar is the row of icons, just below the menu bar, that provides icons for actions affecting the objects that appear in the view pane. Usually, tool bar icons provide single–click access to many of the most commonly used features of the Workbench.
Figure 3. Tool bar icons


The primary icons (highlighted in the above image) are always visible, Additional sets of icons are added to the toolbar when you select certain views. For example, when the Wire Sheet view is active, the Delete Links icon and Zoom icons are available.

When an icon is dimmed, it is unavailable. Hovering the mouse pointer over a toolbar icon invokes a window description known as a “tool tip”.

Path bar (locator bar) — located just below the toolbar, this area contains the path or Ord for the current view.
Figure 4. Path bar


The left side of the path bar shows your current location (Ord or web address). The View selector appears on the right side.

The purpose of the path bar is to provide a graphical navigation field for selecting, displaying and entering destination references. The path bar serves several functions:

  • It updates automatically each time you select a new view - so that it shows you the Ord of each view.

  • The system displays an Ord in a graphical row of icons, so that when you hover the mouse pointer over an icon (or click on any icon) along that Ord, you can access any child node from the Ord’s graphical drop-down list.

  • The path bar functions much the same as a browser address field, permitting you to enter an Ord or a URL. Click the (Edit Path) icon to enter a different Ord or a web address (internal or external).

View selector — a context sensitive menu with options that allow you to quickly display different views of the information that is currently in the view pane. This selector appears on the right side of the locator bar, just below the tool bar.
Figure 5. View selector


The options in the view selector differ, depending on the current view pane contents. For example, the view selector options that are available when you are viewing the platform in the view pane are different from the options that are available when you are displaying the Driver Manager view.

Side bar pane — left-side area displays one or more side bars that you may select from the Windows menu. For example you might have the following open at the same time: Nav tree, Search side bar, and a module palette.
View pane — This pane, located on the right-side of the window, displays the currently selected view for the active tab. It is the largest display area below the locator bar. Features of the view pane include multiple tabbed views and a thumbnail view.

To change the selected view do any of the following:

  • Double-click on an item in the Nav tree.

  • Select a view or action from a Nav tree palette menu.

  • Select an option from a menu or submenu.

  • Select an option from the locator bar.

The thumbnail view, when active, appears in the top right corner of the wire sheet provides orientation.

Console — bottom area provides access to a command line prompt without leaving the Workbench environment.

To hide or show the console, select Window > Hide Console or Window > Console from the menu bar.

Figure 6. Example of a console


The console has scroll bars on the right side and the window size may be adjusted by dragging the top border bar. From the console you may type in commands directly, including the help command for additional help.