Using Splice Studio

What is Splice Studio? Splice Studio is the application you use to create new Splices and edit existing Splices. It is a web-based rich-client application (powered by Adobe Flex) allowing you to easily drag and drop the services you need to create a custom web service. The following section walks you through the Splice Studio's key concepts.
Launching Splice Studio You can launch Splice Studio at any time by clicking the Create Splice button on the top section of the Splice web site.
Splice Studio Areas Splice Studio consists of the following areas: The Menu Area on top of the windows. This includes a menu allowing you to navigate back to the Splice web site and various action buttons described below. The Design Canvas is the main design area with the white background. Included on the canvas are the garbage can, and the input and output windows described below. The Service Pane is the area on the left side of the canvas. It lists the various types of web services and splices you can drag and drop on the canvas.
Splice Studio Menu This menu lets you navigate back to the Splice web site. You can get help or navigate directly to your list of public, private, or draft splices.
Zoom Buttons These buttons let you zoom the display of the canvas in and out, allowing you to work on a large canvas and focus or specific areas when you need to.
Production Buttons These buttons let you save your Splice along different stages of production. You can Save a Splice at any time in order not to lose your work. Splice Studio also lets you Save a Splice under another name. Once your Splice is complete, you can Test it. The test must be successful before you can Publish the Splice. Upon successful complete of a test, you can Publish a splice to make it ready for use. Splice Studio will then provide you with the WSDL, REST and JSON urls for your Splice.
Service Pane The Service Pane lists the web services you can use to create a new Splice. The pane breaks the services in multiple sections: Xignite Web Services are public web services available from Xignite. You must either be a trial user or a subscriber for those services to be able to use them. Other Web Services are public web services registered on Splice that can be integrated into your Splices. Public Splices are Splices that you or other users built and made available publicly. Private Splices are Splices you created but do not want to make available publicly. The Input Data Types area is described below.
Splice Inputs and Splice Outputs These two boxes represent the input parameters and output class structure of the web service your are creating. Splice Inputs represent the input parameters for your service. For instance your service may require the application to provide a symbol, a date and other parameters. It is good to design what you think the parameters of the service should be ahead of time. Splice outputs represent the return class of your web service (also called return object or structure). This is simply the data you will be getting back when calling the service. On this picture, the Splice Inputs and Splice Outputs have yet to be configured.
Finding A Web Service Using AutoComplete To build a Splice, you must "consume" web services from the Service Pane. You may have already used the Splice web site to browser available splices. Splice makes it easy to find a web service right from within Splice Studio. Simply type what you are looking for and Splice Studio displays the list of matching web services.
Dragging and Dropping a Service Onto the Canvas Once you found the service you were looking for, just drag and drop it onto the canvas. First drag it...
Then drop it... The box for this service will then appear on the canvas.
Using the Garbage Can Don't worry if you make a mistake, you can drag and drop a service box into the garbage can at any time.
The Web Service Box After you dropped a service onto the canvas, a box appears for the service. This box has several features: Inputs are the required input parameters for the service. You can access this area by clicking on the Inputs button. Splice Studio indicates the data type for each field (including complex types). Outputs is the return class structure for the service. You can access this area by clicking on the Outputs. button. Splice Studio also indicates if the service returns an array of objects by displaying brackets [] after the name of the return class. you can also expand the outputs when the service returns a nested class structure.
Linking a Service Input to the Splice Inputs Box After you drag a service onto the canvas, you must configure all its inputs. You have two options: Connect the service input the Splice Inputs. Connect the service input the output of another service. To link the service input to the Splice Inputs box, simply drag the input parameter onto the Splice Inputs box as shown. You can drag the service parameter as a new Input parameter in the Splice Inputs box. Once you drop the parameter, Splice Studio pops up an Add an Input Parameter window. In this window you can: Rename the input parameter. Provide a hard-coded value for the input by Choosing Constant Value in the drop-down box. Provide a test value for this input by Choosing Test Value in the drop-down box. This test value will only be used when testing whether the Splice works. In this scenario, the Input parameter will be one of the required parameters for the Splice. After this step, Splice Studio will show the the two boxes are connected by showing the yellow Splice Connection. To connect a service input to the output of another service, use the same method as described in the Linking a Service Input to an Existing Splice Input below.
Linking a Service Input to an Existing Splice Input In the example above, we showed how you could connect a Service box to the Splice Inputs box by creating a new Slice Input field. You can also connect a service box to an existing Input field. In this case, you simply proceed the other way around: you drag the Input field from the Splice Inputs box onto the corresponding input field of the Service box. As you do this, Splice Studio highlights in green the fields from the Service box that match the data type of the field from the Splice Inputs box.
Removing a Splice Connection To remove a Splice Connection you must first click on either end of the connection you want to remove as shown. Splice Studio then pops up a window showing all the existing mapping between the fields of both the input and output box. In this example, the Symbol field from the Splice INputs box is linked to the Symbol field from the Get Quick Quote service. You can uncheck the fields you want to disconnect and click OK.
Linking a Service Output to the Splice Outputs Box Once you configured the inputs of a Service, you must decide what to do with its output. You have two options: Connect some of those output fields to the Splice Outputs box. Connect some of those output fields to the input another Service. Any output you connect to the Outputs box will then appear in the resulting service. To link the service output to the Splice Outputs box, simply drag the output parameter onto the Splice Outputs box as shown. Once you drop the parameter, Splice Studio pops up a Your Return Object window. In this window you can: Rename the return object (here we change it from GetQuickQuoteReturnObject (the default) to QuickQuote). Choose to link additional outputs to the Splice Outputs box by checking the box in front of them. Rename the output field to something more appropriate for your web service (here we could have renamed Last to Price for instance). After this step, Splice Studio will show the the two boxes are connected by showing the yellow Splice Connection.
Testing a Splice Once your splice is complete, you can test it. A complete splice should at least have its inputs and outputs configured and use one Service. The simple Splice shown on the rigth demonstrate that. Click on the Test button. If you had not yet named your Splice, Splice Studio will pop up the following window. Note that the name of your Splice is important as it will be part of the URL for the web service. There are some other important considerations on the names: Must be unique among all your Splices. Must start with a letter, then be followed by letters, numbers or underscores. Will be your initial Splice Title (you can change this title later). This name cannot be changed once it is published. Then Splice Studio will display this window while testing the service using your Test parameters. The length of the Test will depend on the complexity of your Splice. Upon completion of the test, Splice Studio will display this window which lets you examine the results of your test either in XML Format... Or as an output tree... Or even as a grid which you can configure to your liking by picking the fields you want to display.
Publishing a Splice If your test was successful, you are ready to publish it! Just click on the publish button. Upon completion, Splice Studio then displays the following window. The windows provides the following information: WSDL URL: which you can use to integrate with the Splice using SOAP. The typical format of the WSDL url is http://splices.xignite.com/ YourSpliceUsername_YourSpliceName.wsdl JSON REST URL: which you can use to integrate with the Splice from a JSON compliant application. The typical format of the JSON url is http://splices.xignite.com/ YourSpliceUsername_YourSpliceName.json? Header_Username=YourXigniteUsername&Parameter1=Value1... XML REST URL: which you can use to integrate with the Splice using REST. The typical format of the REST url is http://splices.xignite.com/ YourSpliceUsername_YourSpliceName.xml? Header_Username=YourXigniteUsername&Parameter1=Value1...