User Guide - GUI - Welcome Page
Info
Available in ≥ 2.12
Introduction
The Welcome page provides a quick guide for self-discovering and analyzing the impact of changes, or identifying a path for modernization. When you first login to CAST Imaging and select an application, by default, you will be directed to the Welcome page, which displays the details of the current application.
Info
The tabs/links displayed in the Welcome page depend on the content of the selected application. For example: the Data Objects tab/link appears only when the selected application contains database objects, such as procedures, functions, and so on.
Click to enlarge
Info
- If/when there is a delay in loading the Welcome page, loader screen is displayed to let the user know that the Welcome page is in the process of loading.
- Out of the box, CAST Imaging will display the Welcome page by default, however, it can be disabled using the Landing Page option in Preferences (set it to Imaging Menu):
- Use the “Home” button in the left hand panel:
- To re-display the Welcome page, if you have navigated away from it
- To display the Welcome page, if you have selected “Imaging Menu” as the landing page in Preference
OR 
Options in the Welcome page
When you login to Imaging, the Welcome page is displayed with two tabs - Guided Search and **Pre-defined.**By default, Pre-defined tab is selected and the tiled view is displayed (as in previous releases). See User Guide - GUI - Welcome Page - Guided Search.
Info
The tiles displayed in each section depend on the characteristic of your application (i.e. All the tiles shown below are not always visible).
Do you want to learn about your application? /Are you new to the application?
Provides information and dedicated views to help you understand and discover the application.
- Application Architecture
- Frameworks
- Technologies
- External Reference
- RDMS Table Inventory (previously called as Database Structure) - see User Guide - GUI - Welcome Page - Are you new to the application
- RDMS Object Inventory (previously called as Database Objects)
- Database Access
- Database Storage Objects (previously called as Data Storage Objects)
- Services
- Modules
- APIs Inventory - see User Guide - GUI - Welcome Page - Are you new to the application
- Classes inheritance - (≥ 2.17) - a dedicated view showing the inheritance that exists between different classes in the application. The view exists for all technologies where a “class” object type exists, for example JEE (Java class) and .NET (VB.NET or C# class). This view is ALSO available as a specific “aggregated by” perspective in the Application scope.
- Project Structure (≥ 2.17) - see User Guide - Project Structure scope
- App to App Dependency
Learn about application architecture
Learn about application database
Learn about application modularity
Learn about application dependencies with other application
Do you want to implement changes in code?
Provides information and dedicated views to help you view the impact of a code change to an object, transaction, data call graph. The following tiles can be displayed:
- Investigate Objects
- Investigate Transaction
- Investigate Data Call Graphs
Do you want to know the cloud maturity of your application?
Are you looking for guidance on upgrading/modernizing your application?
This option, in its BETA version, provides access to the “Imaging Advisor” giving information about the status of your application with regard to a migration to a cloud provider such as AWS(Amazon Web Services), Oracle Cloud or Database Migration. See User Guide - GUI - Welcome Page - Imaging Advisor.
Info
Imaging Advisor will be made available for an application at the current time, as follows:
- if it has beenanalyzed with the following extension: com.castsoftware.sql.movetocloud
- if it contains Oracle Server (PL/SQL) objects
Do you want to modernize your application?
Info
Available in ≥ 2.14
Provides information and dedicated views to help you view how items in your application’s source code are linked and the potential impacts of modernizing these items. The following tiles can be displayed:
- Database Table Access
- Database Access
- Third Party Components / External References (≥ 2.17)
- Third Party Components Upgrade / Third Party Components (≥ 2.17) - see User Guide - GUI - Welcome Page - Modernizing Applications
Info
- Analyzed with CAST Console ≥ 2.4 (and fields in Administration Center - Settings - Highlight Settings are populated).
- Analyzed with the extension com.castsoftware.highlight2mri ≥ 1.0.0-beta.
Do you want to accelerate cloud migration?
Info
Available in ≥ 2.14
These tiles provide information about how well prepared your application is for cloud migration, i.e. moving from an on premises deployment to a cloud scenario. The following tiles are displayed:
- Cloud Readiness
- Containerization Insights
When a tile is clicked, an interface is loaded where a list of “blockers” (i.e. a list of “issues” found in the application that could hinder a move to the cloud) and “boosters” (behaviour found in the application that already conforms to cloud best-practices, and therefore would not negatively impact the process of moving the application to the cloud) - see User Guide - GUI - Welcome Page - Cloud Migration information for more information.
Info
This information is generated using CAST Highlight, therefore these tiles are only displayed if the application meets the following requirements:
- Analyzed with CAST Console ≥ 2.4 (and fields in Administration Center - Settings - Highlight Settings are populated)
- Analyzed with the extension com.castsoftware.highlight2mri ≥ 1.0.0-beta
Do you want to optimize and secure your application?
This option helps you to highlight the object types that have been identified to have Security Flaws, Performance Flaws, and Error Handling Flaws.
The following tiles are displayed:
- Security Flaws
- Performance Flaws
- Error Handling Flaws
When you click on any of the above tiles, respective flaws are highlighted as shown below.
Application properties
| Entry | Description |
|---|---|
|
Other information displays the selected application's total number of:
|
| Technologies and Lines of Code values Lists the "Technologies" associated with the selected application and the "Lines of Code" per technology. By default, a maximum of 5 technologies associated with the selected applications are displayed. A SHOW MORE button (available in ≥ 2.16.0) helps you to view all the technologies associated with the selected application. SHOW MORE button is not displayed if the number of technologies associated with the selected application is less than 5. The Core Metrics extension is used to generate the Lines of Code (LOC) value and obtain the list of technologies. Therefore these values may be empty if you have upgraded to CAST Imaging ≥ 2.12.0 and your applications were not analyzed with the inclusion of the Core Metrics extension. If you need to see these values, you should therefore run an analysis (ensuring that the Core Metrics extension is installed) and re-import your applications into CAST Imaging. Note:
|
|
Languages and Lines of Code values Lists the "Languages" associated with the selected application and the "Lines of Code" per language. This provides more information than is provided by the LOC values for Technologies (Technologies are custom "groupings" which do not show all constituent languages). This information matches the information provided in the Overview panel in CAST Console.
|
Action when clicking a tile
Clicking on any of the above mentioned tile takes you direct to a custom layout that is specific to the tab you have clicked. For example, clicking the Data Storage Objects option opens a view displaying all the SQL tables in your application:
Some tiles take you to a dedicated interface providing detailed information:
- User Guide - GUI - Welcome Page - Imaging Advisor
- User Guide - GUI - Welcome Page - Cloud Migration information
- User Guide - GUI - Welcome Page - Modernizing Applications
- User Guide - GUI - Welcome Page - Are you new to the application
Welcome Guide pop-up
When clicking a tab/link in the Welcome page and navigating through to the custom layout, a pop-up message is also displayed by default which explains what the custom view contains. For example, clicking the Database Tables option opens a view displaying all the SQL tables in your application and the pop-up message explains this:
Info
Click Do not show again if you do not want a specific pop-up to be displayed every time you click a specific tab/link in the Welcome page.
Redisplaying the pop-up
Use the View Information option in the left hand panel:
- To re-display the pop-up when it is closed
- To display the pop-up whenever the “Do not show again” option is selected.
In Imaging versions ≥ 2.20.0, the graph info section opens automatically on navigating from homepage tiles.
Disabling the pop-up
If you want to disable the pop-up message for all the tabs/links of the Welcome Page, use (disable) the Welcome Guide option under Preferences:
