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Usability of Editor for Information Models, Function Blocks [message #1796514]

Mon, 15 October 2018 11:21

Eclipse User

We have seen that the Usability of the DSL Editor (e.g. code completion) would be very important to us (since non-programmers would use it for modeling the information models and they need as much support from the editor as possible).

We generally see a benefit of using a Web-based editor compared to an Eclipse-Plugin since nothing has to be installed locally and it can be integrated nicely with workflows and persistence.

In our context, the following features would be useful for the Web-Editor that are currently missing:

- DSL Web-Editor with auto code completion and related features (similar features that were available in the Vorto Eclipse Plug-In)

- Drag and drop of existing artifacts such that non-programmers just could take the existing function blocks and drag&drop them to a new device information model without having to care much for the DSL. --> Similar to what was available in the Vorto Eclipse Plug-In.

- Functionality to define templates of information models and function blocks that then can be customized by other persons.

The Vorto Project plans to make use of an LSP protocol enabled web-editor (such as Monarch editor or similar).

What is the Vorto Project's timeline on adding an LSP based editor to the Web-application and has the Vorto project already evaluated LSP based editors?

Are ther any plans on adding drag and drop functionality or template support to the Web-Application?

Thanks and best regards, Andri

Re: Usability of Editor for Information Models, Function Blocks [message #1796661 is a reply to message #1796514]

Tue, 16 October 2018 23:43

Eclipse User

Hi Andri,
thanks for your feedback for the benefits you see using the web-based DSL editor compared to the Eclipse Plugins. I share your opinion and it makes absolutely sense to bring a much better user experience for describing devices in Vorto. I was looking at LSP and MS Monaco editor so far and with Xtext it works pretty nicely. So yes, we are planning to put it in together with Drag&Drop, but the sad news: not before Q2 2019 :(
Our current focus is to improve security and permission scheme in Vorto as well as improve stability and performance.

When you are saying "Templates for models" , what would examples of templates be and how would you use them ?

Cheers, Alex

Re: Usability of Editor for Information Models, Function Blocks [message #1796685 is a reply to message #1796661]

Wed, 17 October 2018 11:04

Eclipse User

Hello Alex
Thanks for the info.

Regarding the templates:

My idea was that templates of function blocks and information models could help non-programmers (domain experts in our case) deal with the DSL. Such that only few information has to be entered by them in the DSL editor.
For datatypes it probably makes less sense since it is already too technical.

Use-cases such as:
- Create information model for a new device variant an add additional function block already existing in repo
- Take an existing function block and add an additional configuration item to it, then use it in a new information model

Maybe the inheritance/extend features of Vorto would already be sufficient.
The domain experts could look up existing artifacts in the repository and then extend them.
The "template" would then consist of a set of artifacts in the repository of defined namespace and version where the domain experts could start from.

Regards, Andri

Re: Usability of Editor for Information Models, Function Blocks [message #1796728 is a reply to message #1796685]

Thu, 18 October 2018 03:59

Eclipse User

Hi Andri,
interesting idea and it sounds quite useful. We currently support new versions of an existing model, which basically creates the model and dumps the content of the referenced model in there but the only variable here is the version number. But I guess what you want (correct me if I am wrong), is that you create new model with a selected model as its base , and giving it a complete new name , namespace and version , right ? Then the user can start off from a model with some content and just modify it. I agree, for FBs , the behaviour would be different whereby the template would create a new model and extends the base model instead of dumping the content of the base model. I hope i am getting this right :)

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