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Home » Modeling » GMF (Graphical Modeling Framework) » GMF, Graphiti or just GEF for a "Form Designer" tool ?
GMF, Graphiti or just GEF for a "Form Designer" tool ? [message #1013880] Sun, 24 February 2013 15:32 Go to next message
Vince Cadmus is currently offline Vince CadmusFriend
Messages: 16
Registered: July 2012
Junior Member
Hi,

I think the question is quite the same as http://www.eclipse.org/forums/index.php/m/381161/, but as it is a bit old, may be the answer has changed ?

So I need to write an eclipse plugin that is a sort of wysiwyg "Form Designer" : it edits/creates a model that defines some components with their position and dimension, some component being containers for the other ones (eg : the "form" component contains "text" and "input" components, etc). There is no logical connections between components (other than the parent/children one), and component positions must be stored within each component.

I already made a prototype with GEF, but I was wondering if GMF could save me some work for this kind of editor. It seems very powerful, but more dedicated to diagrams (component with connections), and some nice graphical tools ("arrange all" for instance) won't be very useful.

What do you think if the best way to develop this kind of plugin ?

Thanks ! Smile
Re: GMF, Graphiti or just GEF for a "Form Designer" tool ? [message #1014453 is a reply to message #1013880] Mon, 25 February 2013 21:19 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Thomas Beyer is currently offline Thomas BeyerFriend
Messages: 55
Registered: February 2013
Member
Hi Vince,

GMF is indeed very extensive considering its provided functionality out of the box. You don't have to use connections, if you don't require to.
The generative approach and the ability to even customize the generation at almost every level/step within the transformation chain offers a very flexible development environment for graphical editors.

However, from my experiences, some concepts of GMF and its tooling seems quiet high-level at the beginning and the framework has grown very large.

The approach of Graphiti is at the moment propably the more lightweight one, but not GEF.

Since you are already experienced with GEF, GMF is just bridging the gap to EMF in a generative way (like a very very rich controller between gef - being the ui layer framework - and emf - being the persistence resp. data layer framework).

From what I understand, GMF Tooling is working on the support for reusing the GMF generation framework for Graphiti as well as for GMF.
So once you managed to operate the GMF generation, you will simply have the choice what to generate. Cool stuff, right?

As far as I am concerned, I would always choose the GMF-way, because there is hardly anything, that can't be done. True, the documentation seems a little "distributed", but the community is strong and a lot of problems have already been discussed, that you could leverage from.

Regards Thomas
Re: GMF, Graphiti or just GEF for a "Form Designer" tool ? [message #1015023 is a reply to message #1014453] Wed, 27 February 2013 08:33 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Vince Cadmus is currently offline Vince CadmusFriend
Messages: 16
Registered: July 2012
Junior Member
Thanks Thomas for your detailled answer ! Smile

I think I'll try GMF, I was feeling it could be very useful to fill the gap between EMF and GEF - at the begining I was not using EMF, I've changed my model to use it and it's cool, so now it makes ever more sense to use GMF - but I was a bit afraid it was too complex for my use. Your testimonial is an argument more to try it ! Smile
Re: GMF, Graphiti or just GEF for a "Form Designer" tool ? [message #1015376 is a reply to message #1015023] Thu, 28 February 2013 12:18 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Aurélien Pupier is currently offline Aurélien PupierFriend
Messages: 637
Registered: July 2009
Location: Grenoble, FRANCE
Senior Member

Hi,

we have implemented this kind of things with GMF at BonitaSoft, see http://www.bonitasoft.com/resources/documentation/bos-59/form-field-design/form-builder-overview

You can test it, it is available in free Open-source version: http://www.bonitasoft.com/products/download-bpm-software-and-documentation

The source code is available under GPL v2 here: http://www.bonitasoft.org/websvn/listing.php?repname=Bonita+Open+Solution&path=%2Fbonita-studio%2Ftags%2Fbonita-studio-5.9.1%2F#path_bonita-studio_tags_bonita-studio-5.9.1_

Regards,


Aurélien Pupier - Red Hat
Senior Software Engineer in Fuse Tooling team
Re: GMF, Graphiti or just GEF for a "Form Designer" tool ? [message #1763660 is a reply to message #1015376] Thu, 18 May 2017 12:18 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kavita Harne is currently offline Kavita HarneFriend
Messages: 2
Registered: December 2016
Junior Member
Hi Aureliean,

I am trying to create JSP editor based on WYSISWYG.
I need to know what would be the better approach GEF or GMF .
Also I tried accessing your code given in above [post but it seems page is no loner available.
Will it be possible for you to give the working URL?

I need working URL for this one : http://community.bonitasoft.com/websvn/listing.php?repname=Bonita+Open+Solution&path=%2Fbonita-studio%2Ftags%2Fbonita-studio-5.9.1%2F#path_bonita-studio_tags_bonita-studio-5.9.1_
Re: GMF, Graphiti or just GEF for a "Form Designer" tool ? [message #1763664 is a reply to message #1763660] Thu, 18 May 2017 12:36 Go to previous message
Aurélien Pupier is currently offline Aurélien PupierFriend
Messages: 637
Registered: July 2009
Location: Grenoble, FRANCE
Senior Member

Hello,

I would say, the best approach would be to use Sirius instead of GMF now.

not sure if the code is still reachable, the new version is hosted here: https://github.com/bonitasoft/bonita-studio

Regards,


Aurélien Pupier - Red Hat
Senior Software Engineer in Fuse Tooling team
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