Authoring ESB Artifacts With ESB Editor

ESB editor can be used for visual editing of sequence definitions, endpoint definitions, proxy service definitions as well as whole synapse configurations. Once you have created one of these artifacts, you can double-click on the corresponding .xml file to open up the ESB editor. Alternatively you may right-click on the corresponding .xml file and select Open With->ESB Editor. In this guide we will use ESB editor for authoring a synapse configuration file.

To create a synapse configuration, follow the instructions given on Create a Synapse Configuration guide.

ESB Editor provides following facilities for authoring ESB configuration files:

  1. A tree view editor for visual editing of synapse configuration artifacts (including a source view tab).
  2. A customized Outline view for easy navigation through huge configuration files.
  3. A properties view for manipulating various attributes of the currently selected element on the visual editor.
  4. A WSO2 ESB Tools perspective providing easy access to all of above components.




ESB Tools Perspective



Right-clicking on an element on the visual editor will bring up a context-sensitive menu which allows adding new children elements / sibling elements into the configuration. For an example, right-clicking on the Synapse element will bring up a menu which allows us to add new sequences, proxies or endpoints into the current configuration.



Add sequences, endpoints or proxies



Esb editor currently supports almost all the in-built mediator types; right-clicking on a parent mediator or a sequence reveals a menu which allows us to introduce new mediators into the configuration.





Mediator support



Newly added elements can easily be configured using the properties view as shown below:





Properties view



Outline view becomes really handy when you need to focus your editing to a particular sub-tree of your configuration. Selecting an element on the outline view will focus the design view into the particular sub-tree rooted at that element.





Outline view



Advanced users may find it easy to use the source view coupled with the outline view when source-editing large configuration files.





Source view