Working connected or offline with i Projects

During development, you can work in two modes: live (connected) and offline (disconnected). i Projects aid in team development because you can work offline and then synchronize your entire project with a software change management repository, rather than having to edit each member separately while connected to the IBM® i server.

Live editing mode

In live editing mode, you make a connection to your i server (using the Remote System Explorer) and open source code for editing. Your member is locked on the server, and each time you save, the server incorporates your changes. However, you always have to be in an environment, at work for example, where you have access to your i server.

Working offline with i Projects

The i Projects perspective allows for disconnected development. A live connection is required only when code updates or builds are needed. If you are working on a remote laptop, or are at home with a slower connection, you might choose to work in disconnected mode. With this option, you explicitly copy files locally while you have a live connection, close the connection, work on the files at your leisure, and upload them back to the server when you have finished. Another advantage to working in disconnected mode is that you can verify source code for syntax and semantic errors without being connected and submit a compile only when you are connected.

An i Project represents the starting point for development. It is the top level of organization of your resources in the workbench, and is used for building and compiling, version management, team sharing, and organizing resources. A project contains files and folders, and can also contain session and persistent properties, settings for environmental variables, and references to other projects. It has two required properties (or attributes) to enable the development cycle:
  1. An IBM i connection: You must specify an i connection that you want to associate with the i Project. The connection allows for remote access to the i server, and manages user ID and password authentication to the remote server.
  2. An associated library: The associated library is a single remote library on the i server. An i Project maps to an associated library to push locally made code changes to the remote server, and to perform builds on that server. You should use this library as your own personal library, not to be edited directly on the server. If you share the library or make changes on the server you will be notified of the conflict when you upload your changes.

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