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Large workspace design - split it up or keep it in one

annette2
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Hi,

I have a large workspace; a simple export of gas assets. There are a lot of joins and the workspace is large and not so easy to read without zooming in and out. Views are currently not an option. I want to make the workspace easy for the others who are new to FME to support it too.

Question:

Is it best practice to keep a large workspace as a whole and use bookmarks to manage zooming in and out. The logic in the workspace is simple so this is my preference and what I’ve mostly done to date.

Or is my thinking out of date and would it be better to split the workspace into 4 workspaces of 5 assets each. Or even 20 workspaces, one for each asset, and use a (FME Server) workspace runner to call the workspaces one after another? Maintaining the individual workspaces would be simpler but then you have the added complexity of a workspace runner.

Your thoughts are welcome. What is the current best practice?

Annette

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Best answer by fmelizard 9 October 2017, 00:45

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stalknecht
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Hi @annette2, I like to point you to a presentation of @lars_de_vries: Layouting your workspace

redgeographics
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+1 for the presentation by @lars_de_vries (and his template, available in the FME Hub)

In general terms, I think I would lean towards keeping this in a single workspace and use bookmarks or maybe custom transformers to keep it all sane. But there's pros and cons to both options really.

fmelizard
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I'd agree with @redgeographics as well. In FME 2018, there will be a facility for collapsing bookmarks which, for a straightforward workspace as you're describing, would seem to further favor the all-in-one-with-bookmarks approach.

Aside: @annette2 -- if you're able and willing, we'd love to use your workspace as a test for our bookmark expand/collapse testing. If you can, please send it over to support@safe.com and advise them that you were invited to provide it for this purpose. That way we'll make it it really works well for your scenario!

dustin
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I'd agree with @redgeographics as well. In FME 2018, there will be a facility for collapsing bookmarks which, for a straightforward workspace as you're describing, would seem to further favor the all-in-one-with-bookmarks approach.

Aside: @annette2 -- if you're able and willing, we'd love to use your workspace as a test for our bookmark expand/collapse testing. If you can, please send it over to support@safe.com and advise them that you were invited to provide it for this purpose. That way we'll make it it really works well for your scenario!

 

Just out of curiosity, how will collapsible bookmarks handle output lines coming from two different transformers within a single bookmark?
annette2
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Thanks Wilco, Hans, Dale. My plan was not so old fashioned then :)

annette2
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I'd agree with @redgeographics as well. In FME 2018, there will be a facility for collapsing bookmarks which, for a straightforward workspace as you're describing, would seem to further favor the all-in-one-with-bookmarks approach.

Aside: @annette2 -- if you're able and willing, we'd love to use your workspace as a test for our bookmark expand/collapse testing. If you can, please send it over to support@safe.com and advise them that you were invited to provide it for this purpose. That way we'll make it it really works well for your scenario!

Yes, I will submit it end of next week when it is finished. Thanks.

 

 

fmelizard
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Just out of curiosity, how will collapsible bookmarks handle output lines coming from two different transformers within a single bookmark?
The ports whose connections leave a bookmark will be part of the resulting collapsed bookmark.

 

 

Best to show the results from a recent FME 2018 beta:

 

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

Note -- we are working on compressing the horizontal space still...

 

 

FYI @annette2 @redgeographics @cartoscro
redgeographics
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I'd agree with @redgeographics as well. In FME 2018, there will be a facility for collapsing bookmarks which, for a straightforward workspace as you're describing, would seem to further favor the all-in-one-with-bookmarks approach.

Aside: @annette2 -- if you're able and willing, we'd love to use your workspace as a test for our bookmark expand/collapse testing. If you can, please send it over to support@safe.com and advise them that you were invited to provide it for this purpose. That way we'll make it it really works well for your scenario!

Thanks for the update @daleatsafe, that looks very interesting!

 

redgeographics
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Thanks Wilco, Hans, Dale. My plan was not so old fashioned then :)

Not at all. An additional downside of a multi-workspace approach is that a change in parameters of a child workspace will mean you have to update the master one too and that's something that can be potentially overlooked. Especially in the interest of explaining this to novice users I would say keep it as compact as possible.

 

 

mark2atsafe
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One thought is that you should split it up if you intend several people to be editing - if there is just one workspace and several people edit separately then all the edits need merging, whereas with several workspaces each person works on their own section and there is less likelihood of a clash.

Otherwise, it's quite fine to have one workspace with multiple bookmarks. I tend to make the connections between bookmarks invisible/tunnels. That way you can move entire bookmarks around to get a good layout, without having lines visibly criss-crossing all over the canvas.

annette2
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One thought is that you should split it up if you intend several people to be editing - if there is just one workspace and several people edit separately then all the edits need merging, whereas with several workspaces each person works on their own section and there is less likelihood of a clash.

Otherwise, it's quite fine to have one workspace with multiple bookmarks. I tend to make the connections between bookmarks invisible/tunnels. That way you can move entire bookmarks around to get a good layout, without having lines visibly criss-crossing all over the canvas.

Thanks Mark. Yes originally the work might have been split to complete it in one scrum sprint. But in the end the work was for one person in one sprint.

 

 

That's a good tip on the bookmarks. Thanks.

 

 

annette2
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I'd agree with @redgeographics as well. In FME 2018, there will be a facility for collapsing bookmarks which, for a straightforward workspace as you're describing, would seem to further favor the all-in-one-with-bookmarks approach.

Aside: @annette2 -- if you're able and willing, we'd love to use your workspace as a test for our bookmark expand/collapse testing. If you can, please send it over to support@safe.com and advise them that you were invited to provide it for this purpose. That way we'll make it it really works well for your scenario!

I'm submitting the workspace today. Thanks Dale.

 

 

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