Solaris Common Desktop Environment: Advanced User's and System Administrator's Guide

To Create a Data Type Definition

  1. Open an existing database file or create a new one.

    For more information, see the previous section, Configuration Files for Data Types.

  2. Define the data attributes for the data type using the syntax:

    	DATA_ATTRIBUTES data_type_name
     	{
     		ICON						image_name
     		DESCRIPTION				string
     		attribute_field
     		attribute_field
     		…
     	}
    

    where:

    data_type_name—a unique name given to this data type.

    image_name—file name or path of an icon file. Use the base name for the file. For example, for icon files myimage.m.pm and myimage.t.pm, use myimage.

    attribute_field—field that defines the appearance or behavior of the data type.

    string—character string. The contents will be the on-item help for the data type.

    See Example of Creating a Personal Action and Data Type.

  3. Define the data criteria for the data type using the syntax:

    	DATA_CRITERIA criteria_name
     	{
     		DATA_ATTRIBUTES_NAME						data_type_name
     		criteria_field
     		criteria_field
     		…
     	}
    

    where:

    criteria_name—unique name for this criteria definition

    data_type_name—name used in the DATA_ATTRIBUTES definition

    criteria_field—field used to define the criteria for assigning a file to this data type

    See Defining the Data Criteria for a Data Type.

  4. Save the database file.

  5. Create the icons for the data type.

    For more information, see Specifying the Icon Image Used for a Data Type.

  6. If necessary, create the actions listed in the ACTIONS field of the attributes definition.

  7. Double-click Reload Actions in the Desktop_Tools application group to reload the database.