How to: Create Custom Settings for Applications, Servers, Endpoints, and Zones
In Team Edition for Architects, you can create custom settings to provide additional metadata about your development or deployment environment. You can create custom settings on applications and endpoints in Application Designer. You can create custom settings on logical servers, endpoints, and zones in Logical Datacenter Designer. You cannot use custom settings to define constraints. For more information, see Constraining Application and Application Hosting Relationships.
To create a custom setting
On the diagram, click the application, endpoint, logical server, or zone to which you want to add a custom setting.
In the Settings and Constraints Editor, expand the Settings node, right-click Custom, and choose Add Custom Settings.
The Custom Settings dialog box appears. The Custom Settings field shows all custom settings defined for the selected item.
Under Setting Details, enter information in the following fields as appropriate to define the custom setting:
Field Name Description Name
Setting name (must be unique). Cannot contain white space, begin with a number, or contain non-alphanumeric characters.
Type
Setting type. For example, "String," "Boolean," "Guid," and so on.
Category
Category the setting falls under. Use categories to group custom settings, as appropriate. This field is optional.
Value
Value of the setting based on the type specified. If Allow Multiple Values is selected, then this is a list of values where individual values are separated by carriage returns.
Allow Multiple Values
Select to provide a list of values in the Values field.
Attributes
Select Show as Property to have the custom setting display in the Properties window. Other attributes you can select are: Required; Overridable; and Nullable. For more information, see Settings Attributes.
Description
Description of the custom setting, which is displayed in the description pane of the Settings and Constraints Editor when the setting is selected.
Click Add to add the custom setting.
The new custom setting is displayed under Custom Settings.
Add more custom settings or click Close to exit.
To edit a custom setting
To edit the contents of a custom setting, right-click Custom and choose Add Custom Settings.
Under Custom Settings, select the setting you want to edit.
Edit the setting values as appropriate.
Click Apply to save the edited setting.
To delete a custom setting
To delete the contents of a custom setting, right-click Custom and choose Add Custom Settings.
Under Custom Settings, select the setting you want to delete.
Click Delete.
Security
Predefined settings and custom settings are saved unencrypted and as plain text in System Definition Model (SDM) documents such as distributed system diagram (.ad, .ldd, and .sd) files, application definition (.sdm) files, and custom prototype (.adprototype and .lddprototype) files. For more information, see Overview of the System Definition Model (SDM) and Extending Distributed System Designers. For certain settings, "safe" versions are displayed when working in Distributed System Designers and are not saved to .sdm or .ad files. For more information, see Considerations for Implementing Applications. Therefore, avoid storing sensitive, confidential, or proprietary data in settings where safe versions are not displayed and be aware of this consideration prior to distributing these files.