Spraying The Natural Way of Creating Graphiti Jos Warmer, Independent [email protected]@openmodeling.nl Karsten Thoms, [email protected]@itemis.de

Spraying The Natural Way of Creating Graphiti

Jos Warmer, Independent [email protected] Thoms, Itemis [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

© SAP AG 2009. All rights reserved. / Page 2EclipseCon Europe 2011, Ludwigsburg

Graphiti Approach

No code generation but: Uses a runtime engine Programmed using a Java API Easy (relatively) to understand code


But …

Programming the editor in Java is much (often simple but repetitive) work.

E.g. for one shape for one metaclass: At least five feature classes: AddFeature, CreateFeature,

DeleteFeature, LayoutFeature, UpdateFeature Features all need to be configured in the FeatureProvider Need to configure palette in the ToolBehaviourProvider Need to configure used images in ImageProvider

Repeat this for e.g. ten metaclasses ……….


The Spray Graphiti Generator

Started a research project Got a government grant

Became useful before being finished Project for Visual Insurance Product Modeling language Spray had to be adapted to the PMW project Became partly generic, partly project specific

Resulting Editors are used by non IT users in production Works well (at least for PMW )


The Spray Graphiti Generator

Spray has become open source in July At: http://code.google.com/a/eclipselabs.org/p/spray/ Version 0.1 was the generalized version used for PMW EPL License

Current status Spray is in startup phase Much work done on infrastructure

Plans … growing Spray by adding more features as we go ….. … getting more users and more feedback …..

http://code.google.com/a/eclipselabs.org/p/spray/


The Spray DSL

class BusinessClass icon “class.gif": container ( fill = dark_green ) [ text ( ) { "<<“ + eClass.name + ">> " + name}; line (color = black width = 2); reference properties attribute dataType; line (color = RGB(255,138,141)); text ( ) "::" + description; ] references [ superclass : connection(); ] behavior[ create palette "Shapes" ; doWithBusinessClass "Do It With“ ; ]

Define visualization for metaclass

BusinessClassContents of

the container References to

properties of metaclass

References of businessclass shown

as connections

Behaviour for

Product shape

Will be in palette to create in named

compartment

Icon shown in palette

List of referred objects

Custom behavior


The Spray DSL

class Association icon “association.gif“ : connection (width = 2) [ from source to target fromText text() source.name toText text() targetMultiplicity.name]

Define visualization for metaclass Association

Shown as a connection (line)

Source and target are references in class

AssociationText to show at the “’from’ and ‘to’ to” side, also options for middle of

connection


Spray Generator

Using textual model to define graphical editor Xtext 2, Xtend 2, Xbase

Mixing generated and handwritten code by design Uses Generation Gap pattern Allows full access to Graphiti API Managed by simply moving a generated file from “src-gen” to

“src” folder Generation of code from Spray DSL remains possible in full

project life-cycle.


Spray Vision

Making developing graphical DSL’s as easy as it is to develop textual DSL’s with e.g. Xtext.


Demo

Karsten will show a short demo by creating a simple Graphiti editor from scratch

Documents

Spraying The Natural Way of Creating Graphiti Jos Warmer, Independent [email protected]@openmodeling.nl Karsten Thoms, [email protected]@itemis.de