Launching the Inspector

The Inspector is a quick way to view data at any point while it is being manipulated in Workbench.   

There are two ways to add an Inspector to the canvas:

  • adding an Inspector transformer
  • routing output to an Inspector

Note: You cannot start the Inspector by clicking on the fmeview.exe file in your installation folder.

Adding an Inspector Transformer

The Inspector transformer is located in the Workbench Transformer Gallery, in the Infrastructure category.

  1. Double-click the transformer in the Gallery to add it to the graphical display, or click the Inspector tool on the Workbench toolbar.
  2. Connect the Inspector transformer to any feature type or transformer.

  3. There are several options that you can change.  Click the Properties button to display the Properties dialog.

    4. Transformer Name: Changes the name that is displayed on the bottom of the transformer, as well as the root name of the data in the Inspector.

    Note: An easy way to insert an Inspector is to right-click an output port on a transformer, and choose Connect Inspector. This will automatically give the Inspector the same name as the output port.

    Attributes to Group By: Groups attributes and treats each group as a separate output in the Inspector.

    Pen Color Override: Forces all attributes to be displayed with the selected color.

    Area Fill Color Override: Changes the fill colors of all attributes connected to the transformer.

  4. Click the Run button in Workbench to start the Inspector and display the dataset.

Routing Output to the Inspection Application

  1. Select Redirect to Inspection Application from the Workbench Writers menu.
  2. Click the Run button in Workbench.

This will start the Inspector application, showing a view of the data at the final stage of processing. Essentially, what you see in the Inspector should be very close to the final dataset.

Using the Inspector

You can further customize the dataset view from within the Inspector.