Considerations for Renaming Applications on Application Diagrams
In Application Designer, you can rename application definitions on the application diagram. When you rename an application definition, remember the following considerations:
If the application supports implementation, you can rename its definition before implementation. Once you implement the application, renaming its definition updates the corresponding project files, depending on the application type. For more information, see Implementing Applications on Application Diagrams.
When you rename an application, you must use a unique name.
Visual Studio omits characters from names that are incompatible with the System Definition Model (SDM). If the resulting name conflicts with another name or a reserved SDM name, Visual Studio appends an ordinal to the name or increments the ordinal, if one already exists. For more information about SDM, see Overview of the System Definition Model (SDM).
Application names are case-sensitive while project names are not. Therefore, when you implement application definitions of the same type with names that differ only in case, Visual Studio will not implement a "duplicate" application until you change the name of the duplicate. For more information, see Considerations for Implementing Applications.
Once you implement an application definition, the root name of the associated project does not change when you rename the application definition. However, Visual Studio keeps project files, such as SDM documents and class files, synchronized with changes to the application's definition.
Renaming a definition updates its uses on any open system diagrams as follows:
If the definition's name differs from its use name, Visual Studio does not update the use name with the new definition name. Instead, both the definition and the use name will appear on a use of that definition on open system diagrams.
If the definition and use names are the same, then Visual Studio updates the use name with the new definition name.
Visual Studio does not update members of application systems on closed system diagrams when you rename the definition of those members. Members and their definition are linked by name. Therefore, renaming a definition breaks the link with its uses as members on closed system diagrams. Members with broken links (also called "orphaned members") display a red dashed outline when you reopen these diagrams. You can fix these links by repairing those orphaned members. For more information, see How to: Repair Orphaned Members in Application Systems and Troubleshooting System Diagrams.
For more information, see Overview of Application Systems.
See Also
Tasks
How to: Rename Applications on Application Diagrams