The Menu Bar is the most important tool in your client area. You can access any function of the ODX Checker over the menu and several functions can be solely reached over the menu.
Opens one or more ODX Files. Selecting this menu item will pop up the file chooser dialog and let you select one or more ODX documents (files with .odx extension). You cannot open other than files with .odx extension. When you press 'Open' the selected files will be loaded into the ODX Checker. Note that this will reset the complete data storage of the Checker (i.e. all documents that were loaded will be unloaded) and only those files that you selected in the file chooser will be loaded. If you want to add documents to your data storage use 'Add ODX' instead. The selected files will first be validated against the XML Schema and only valid documents will then appear in the File Window. You can also use this function to reload your ODX documents in the data storage if they changed.
The Shortcut for this function is Ctrl-O.
Opens a PDX File. Selecting this menu item will pop up the file chooser dialog and let you select a PDX document (.pdx extension). You cannot open more than one PDX file at a time or other than files with .pdx extension. When you press 'Open' all ODX documents contained in the PDX will be extracted and added to the data storage. Each document will first be validated against the XML Schema and only valid documents will then appear in the File Window. Note that this completely resets your data storage and all files that were loaded before this operation will be unloaded. If you want to add files to your existing data storage use 'Add ODX' instead (but you cannot add another PDX file).
The Shortcut for this function is Ctrl-P.
Adds one or more ODX Files. The file chooser dialog will open when you select this menu item. You may then choose one or more files that should be loaded into the Checker without reseting your current data storage (i.e. without unloading currently loaded files). If no files are loaded yet this menu item will be grayed - use 'Open ODX' instead.
The Shortcut for this function is Ctrl-A.
Unloads all currently loaded documents.
The Shortcut for this function is Ctrl-Q.
Terminates the program.
The Shortcut for this function is ESC.
Sets the active file. The active file is the one being checked when you invoke 'Check Rules'. Initially no file is set to be active after the program has started and one or more files have been loaded. When you select this option a dialog will pop up showing all currently loaded documents in a drop-down list. You may then select one of these files and press OK. The selected file will then be highlighted in the File Window. An easier way to select the active file is to simply select it in the File Window but if you like to control the Checker solely via keyboard this function might be the right choice for you.
The Shortcut for this function is F9.
Performs a rule check on the active file. Invoking this function will start the rule checking process. Only those rules will be checked that have been selected in the Rule Set Tab. The file to be checked (the active file) is being highlighted in the File Window. If you have not set an active file a message "active file undefined" will be displayed in the Log Window. If so choose an active file from the File Window by clicking on it and invoke 'Check Rules' again. Depending on how large the active file is and how many rules are to be checked the rule checking process may take from a few seconds to several minutes. There is no progress indicator and during a check you cannot perform any other actions. Guideline value: Assuming that you're running the ODX Checker on a 1,60 GHz computer with 512 MB of memory and no other computationally expensive applications running simultaneously the check of a 20 MB document should not take much longer than three minutes. After the check has been successfully performed a message will appear in the Log Window telling you which file has been checked and how many errors/warnings have been reported. If there were any errors/warnings they will be reported seperatly in the Messages Tab. A faster way to check a document is by simply double clicking on it in the File Window.
The Shortcut for this function is F7.
Saves the results of a check to an external file. This will open a file chooser dialog asking you to choose a name and a location for the report. You may choose to save the report either in HTML or XML. The report will contain information about the checked file, the date of the check and a detailed list of all rule violations.
The Shortcut for this function is Ctrl-Alt-V.
Saves a list of all rules to an external file. This will open a file chooser dialog asking you to choose a name and a location for the report. You may choose to save the report either in HTML or XML. The report will contain information about all rules that are listed in the Rule Set Tab Tab independent of whether it is activated or not. For each rule its name, version, severity and runtime relevance will be saved as well as a short and a detailed description of what it does.
The Shortcut for this function is Ctrl-Alt-R.
Enables you to change the default settings of the ODX Checker. Selecting this option from the menu will open the preferences dialog. It is seperated into two groups of settings: Rule settings and GUI settings. The settings will now be further explained one by one:
rule path: Lets you specify the folder where the rules are located. Each rule is a seperate .class file. Changing this will result in a different rule set being loaded. Only one rule set can be active at a time.
language (rule settings): Choosing a language from here will result in localized error reports and rule descriptions. The graphical user interface of the ODX Checker is not affected by this option.
language (gui settings): Choosing a language from here will make the GUI (all menus, buttons, dialogs etc.) beeing displayed in the chosen language. The language of error reports and rule descriptions is not affected by this option. Changes regarding the GUI language will become effective after you restart the program.
To confirm your changes press OK or Cancel if you want to discard them.
The Shortcut for this function is Ctrl-Alt-S.
Displays general information about the ASAM ODX Checker.
The Icon Bar offers you buttons for the most important and often used actions so you don't have to browse the menus for every dinky function.
This is a speed button for File->Open ODX...
This is a speed button for File->Open PDX...
This is a speed button for File->Add ODX...
This is a speed button for File->Close
This is a speed button for Run->Check Rules
The File Window is the upper left frame in the client area and keeps a list of all currently loaded ODX documents. If there is an active file it is highlighted. You may choose the active file by simply clicking on it and a double click will perform a rule check on it. You may add and remove files from the File Window using the functions File->Open ODX..., File->Open PDX..., File->Add ODX and File->Close.
The Log Window is located upper right in the client area. Whenever something happens that you should know a message will be appended to the log. The log messages you will probably see most frequently is that a check has been performed successfully on an active file. But there might also be other messages that inform you about problems that occurred during a check or when trying to load a resource. If you right-click on the Log Window you can choose to clear all messages from it.
A very important part of the client area is the Messages Tab. At the beginning of each session and before a check this window is empty, but after a check that found errors these will be reported in the Messages Tab. For each error there will be a seperate row holding information about which rule has been violated, whether it was an error or just a warning, the exact error code, a short description of the reported error and most importantly a complete XPath identifying the location of the error in the malicious document. Since the last two columns, message and path, usually become very long it comes in handy that you can double-click on a message to open a small window where all the data has been formatted for your eyes pleasure. The Messages might sometimes be invisible because you previously clicked on the Rule Set Tab. To make the Messages visible simply click on the corresponding tab.
If you click on the Rule Set Tab you will find a complete list of all rules that were found in the current rule directory (can be set in Settings->Preferences...). Each of these can be activated or deactivated seperatly. Rules that are deactivated will not be checked when you click 'Check Rules'. Double-clicking on a rule will pop up a small window with detailed information about this rule.