.. include:: vars.rst

.. _section-introduction:

Introduction
************

.. NOTE::
   This document assumes you have a basic understanding of 
   *RTI® Connext® DDS* application development and concepts, 
   such as a DDS Domains, *DomainParticipants, Topics, DataWriters*, 
   and *DataReaders*. For an  overview of these concepts, please 
   see the 
   :link_connext_dds_pro_gsg:`RTI Connext DDS Getting Started Guide <>`.

*RTI System Designer* is based on RTI XML-Based Application Creation - a
mechanism to simplify the development of *Connext DDS* applications. For
an overview of its functionality, please see the 
:link_connext_dds_pro_xml_app_creation:`RTI Connext DDS Core Libraries XML-Based Application Creation Getting Started Guide <>`.

|SD| is a tool that allows you to graphically design and
configure all the aspects of a *Connext DDS* distributed system. Think of
it as a user interface (UI) to XML-Based Application Creation,
a technology that allows you to specify in XML format all the aspects of
a DDS system:

-   The Data Types that will be used to communicate information in
    the system
-   The *Topics* that will be used in the domain, associating each
    *Topic* with a *Data Type*
-   The *DomainParticipant* that can potentially be used, giving each a
    participant-name
-   The *DataWriters* and *DataReaders* within each *DomainParticipant*,
    each associated with its corresponding *Topic*
-   The Qualities of Service (QoS) that all the entities can use

Your application code simply indicates the participant configuration
name of the *DomainParticipant* that it wants to create. The XML-Based
Application Creation infrastructure takes care of the rest: creating the
*DomainParticipant*, registering the types and *Topics*, and populating
all the configured Entities.

Writing this XML can be quite challenging. Using a good editor with
autocomplete capabilities along with the provided XML Schema can be of
great help. But it is still quite complicated, especially as the project
gets bigger and involves multiple files. The |SD| UI tool
can help ease this process and manage the complexity of a large system.

This *Getting Started Guide* is not a manual for |SD| and
it does not cover all the functionality. The tool has a lot of inline
help. Look for the |help_icon| symbol for more help while using the tool.

.. tip::
   You can access a live version of |SD| without installing it by visiting:
   https://community.rti.com/downloads/experimental/system-designer

   This URL allows you to test a demo version of |SD|
   and learn more before you download and install it.


.. _section-introduction-prerequisites:

Prerequisites
=============

If you want to validate the XML as described in :ref:`section-project-validate`, 
**xmllint** must be installed before running |SD|. **xmllint** is available for 
the major operating systems here: http://xmlsoft.org/.