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Development of a UI with EMF forms without a data model [message #1815906]

Tue, 15 October 2019 01:36

Clever Alves

Messages: 63
Registered: August 2019

Member

Hi there!

I'm a beginner in EMF and, as far as I know, the normal course of action, when developing a UI with EMF forms, is to render both data model (say, in UML) and EMF's view model.

I'm wondering whether I could develop a UI with EMF forms without a data model, actually, I'd like to generate a data model from such a UI...Is it possible? If so, links to detailed information or examples would be highly appreciated.

Thank you for your attention.

Regards,

Clever.

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Re: Development of a UI with EMF forms without a data model [message #1815909 is a reply to message #1815906]

Tue, 15 October 2019 04:29

Ed Merks

Messages: 30813
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

No, you need a model in which to store the data and you need that model to design the form.

The model need not be designed graphically, but it can be done with a UM-like graphical notation:

https://www.eclipse.org/ecoretools/

Or you can use just the Sample Ecore Editor to design your model in a structured editor as described here:

https://eclipsesource.com/blogs/tutorials/emf-tutorial/

Or you could use a textual notation such as Xcore, or OCLInEcore

https://wiki.eclipse.org/Xcore
https://wiki.eclipse.org/OCL/OCLinEcore

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Re: Development of a UI with EMF forms without a data model [message #1815956 is a reply to message #1815909]

Wed, 16 October 2019 00:49

Clever Alves

Messages: 63
Registered: August 2019

Member

Thank you for your reply, Ed!

I'm new in the field, but I've already seen you're a great expert! Congratulations on your contributions to this amazing platform!

"https://www.eclipse.org/ecoretools/" => I think Ecore models would suit me best. By the way, as far as I know, Ecore features class diagrams just as UML. However, does Ecore also feature, say, sequence and activity diagrams (or something equivalent to what's offered by UML in this sense)?

Regards,

Clever.

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Re: Development of a UI with EMF forms without a data model [message #1815960 is a reply to message #1815956]

Wed, 16 October 2019 03:47

Ed Merks

Messages: 30813
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

No, Ecore is much, much smaller than UML (and was used to implement UML). Look at the class diagrams at the bottom this page:

https://download.eclipse.org/modeling/emf/emf/javadoc/2.10.0/org/eclipse/emf/ecore/package-summary.html

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Re: Development of a UI with EMF forms without a data model [message #1816002 is a reply to message #1815960]

Thu, 17 October 2019 01:29

Clever Alves

Messages: 63
Registered: August 2019

Member

Thank you for your reply, Ed!

I've seen an Ecore model generates interfaces and implementations with getters and setters. Can I use, say, references, to automatically generate other application-specific methods (code form of UML's activity diagrams), as well as sequencing the program (code form of UML's sequence diagrams)?

Thank you for your attention.

Regards,

Clever.

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Re: Development of a UI with EMF forms without a data model [message #1816004 is a reply to message #1816002]

Thu, 17 October 2019 03:53

Ed Merks

Messages: 30813
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

Where there's a will there's a way. EMF's Core framework provides only generation from the Ecore model. You can transform other models to Ecore models, e.g., we transform a *.xsd to a *.ecore to generate a model for representing XML instances conforming to an XML Schema. UML2 similarly provides transformation from *.uml2 to *.ecore, and even has its own extended GenModel as well as extensions for the code generation JET templates. In the simplest form, you can transform to EOperations with a "GenModel" body annotation which will generate the Java code in that annotation into the body of the correspondingly generate Java operation; this is how Xcore's operation bodies (expressed in XBase), are ultimately generated as Java code.

But for someone not wanting to develop a UI form without a model that's wading very deeply into modeling territory.

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Re: Development of a UI with EMF forms without a data model [message #1816041 is a reply to message #1816004]

Thu, 17 October 2019 22:39

Clever Alves

Messages: 63
Registered: August 2019

Member

Thank you for your reply, Ed!

"In the simplest form, you can transform to EOperations with a "GenModel" body annotation which will generate the Java code in that annotation into the body of the correspondingly generate Java operation" => This apparently suits me best...Would you have a URL with an example?

At a later project phase, I aim to use JET to parse through the XML instance output, but I may not have enough time for that...would it make sense?

Regards,

Clever.

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