The Visual Inheritance Structure to Support the Design of Visual Notations

It is a common practice in modelling languages to provide their users with a set of visual notations as a representation of semantic constructs. The use of visual notation is believed to help communicate complex information, especially when communicating with non-technical users. Therefore, research in the design of visual notation continues to evolve, e.g. research to provide an effective and efficient design approach. There are approaches exist to support the designer in designing the visual notation such as the Cognitive Dimensions and the Physics of Notations. As the current metamodeling approach is widely adopted as a mechanism for improving standardisation and interoperability in modelling languages, it is important to provide a guideline that focus on the design of visual notation for a predefined metamodel. In this paper, we address the visual inheritance structure to support the design of visual notations for a predefined metamodel. This approach emphasises the design coherence between classes and sub-classes. To demonstrate that it is possible to apply our approach, we use part of the OMG Structured Assurance Case Metamodel as a case study

A Component-Based Approach for Specifying Reusable Visual Languages

International audienceModel-Driven Engineering (MDE) encourages the use of graphical modeling tools, which facilitate the development process from modeling to coding. Such tools can be designed using the MDE approach into metamodeling environments called metaCASE tools. It turned out that current metaCASE tools still require, in most cases, manual programming to build full tool support for the modeling language, especially for users' native methodologies and representational elements and suffer from gaps in terms of reusability. In this context, we propose MID, a set of metamodels supporting the specification of modeling editors by means of reusable components and explain how representational metamodeling is carried out with it

A Component-Based Approach for Specifying DSML's Concrete Syntax

International audienceModel-Driven Engineering (MDE) encourages the use of graphical modeling tools, which facilitate the development process from modeling to coding. Such tools can be designed using the MDE approach into meta-modeling environments called metaCASE tools. It turned out that current metaCASE tools still require, in most cases, manual programming to build full tool support for the modeling language, especially for users' native methodologies and representational elements and propose limited possibilities in terms of reusability. In this context, we propose MID, a set of meta-models supporting the easy speci cation of modeling editors by means of reusable components and explain how representational meta-modeling is carried out with it

Diagrams Editors Specification Using Reusable Components

International audienceModel Driven Engineering (MDE) encourages the use of graphical modeling tools, which facilitate the development process from modeling to coding. Such tools can be designed using the MDE approach into metamodeling environments called metaCASE tools. It turned out that the implementation of such tools is made by technologies which need as much effort as resources for modest results, requiring in most cases additional programming efforts for their adaptation. Some of these technologies are suffering from weaknesses especially in terms of reusability. In this context, this paper proposes an evaluation for modeling editors. It discusses the current state of the art, compares what was done in every tool that we evaluate; according to relevant criteria; and propose "MID": a set of metamodels supporting the easy specification of modeling editors by means of reusable components

Modeling views in the layered view model for XML using UML

In data engineering, view formalisms are used to provide flexibility to users and user applications by allowing them to extract and elaborate data from the stored data sources. Conversely, since the introduction of Extensible Markup Language (XML), it is fast emerging as the dominant standard for storing, describing, and interchanging data among various web and heterogeneous data sources. In combination with XML Schema, XML provides rich facilities for defining and constraining user-defined data semantics and properties, a feature that is unique to XML. In this context, it is interesting to investigate traditional database features, such as view models and view design techniques for XML. However, traditional view formalisms are strongly coupled to the data language and its syntax, thus it proves to be a difficult task to support views in the case of semi-structured data models. Therefore, in this paper we propose a Layered View Model (LVM) for XML with conceptual and schemata extensions. Here our work is three-fold; first we propose an approach to separate the implementation and conceptual aspects of the views that provides a clear separation of concerns, thus, allowing analysis and design of views to be separated from their implementation. Secondly, we define representations to express and construct these views at the conceptual level. Thirdly, we define a view transformation methodology for XML views in the LVM, which carries out automated transformation to a view schema and a view query expression in an appropriate query language. Also, to validate and apply the LVM concepts, methods and transformations developed, we propose a view-driven application development framework with the flexibility to develop web and database applications for XML, at varying levels of abstraction

Visual specification of metrics for domain specific visual languages

Proceedings of the Fifth International Workshop on Graph Transformation and Visual Modeling Techniques (GT-VMT 2006)We present a Domain Specific Visual Language (DSVL) for the definition of metrics for other DSVLs. The metrics language has been defined using meta-modelling, and includes some of the more used types of product metrics. The goal is to make the definition of metrics for a DSVL easy, reducing or eliminating the necessity of coding. For this purpose, we rely on the use of visual patterns for the specification of the properties that should be measured in each metric type. These ideas have been implemented in the AToM^3 tool, which allows the definition of DSVLs by means of meta-modelling. In this way, with the new extension, the DSVL designer is able to define a metrics suite for a DSVL. Then, an environment is generated where a number of widgets allow taking actual measures of the defined metrics on the models. We present some illustrative examples using the hypermedia design language Labyrinth.This work has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science with projects MD2 (TIC200303654) and MOSAIC (TSI2005-08225-C07-06)