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Eclipse plugins for flexible custom output language IDE? [message #1029209]

Fri, 29 March 2013 10:08

Luk Kuk

Messages: 3
Registered: March 2013

Junior Member

Hello

My company is developing new version of our PLC and I am supposed to make IDE for that.
Our previous IDE is out-of-date and completly not flexible and I am thinking of something brand new. Would Eclipse be the right choice?
Now our PLC is running program written in some kind of custom C-like language (lets call it CLANG) which is converted into controller's virtual machine language (lets call it VML). So our current IDE is set of

CLANG editor
registry and settings editor
debug environment

This CLANG programs are converted into VML.
I want to make some kind of ladder-like language IDE which will convert programs into VML. VML cannot be changed. It is a #define Smile

So my question is:
Can I choose Eclipse using Plugin Development Environment make a

graphic editor for new ladder-like language (placing blocks, changing its params)
editor for textual representation for this language
converter of this above to VML
debug environment

I've already made set of Java classes for PC<->device communication and it is working

Will Eclipse be right choice for such a needs?
Where can I find more info about this or related topics? I was looking for that on Eclipse Forums -> Eclipse Projects -> PDE but with no result

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Re: Eclipse plugins for flexible custom output language IDE? [message #1032770 is a reply to message #1029209]

Wed, 03 April 2013 12:11

Mickael Istria

Messages: 865
Registered: July 2009
Location: Grenoble, France

Senior Member

In general, Eclipse is the good piece of software to use when it come to
implement technical tools. Many languages has built there tools on
Eclipse and provide such editing, debugging, compilation/export (to VML
in your case) capabilities.
In your case, the tricky part is that you want to have 2 editors for a
single file (a graphical one and a textual one). Some projects at
Eclipse.org (such as the SCA or BPEL designers) have implemented that.
However, there are several ways of doing it, You could for example
create a model API for your language concepts with EMF and use XText to
implement textual part (re-implementing the grammar in XText language)
and GMF for the graphical part. Or you could re-use your already
existing model API and implement directly a Text Editor and a GEF editor
that would rely on it...

HTH
--
Mickael Istria
JBoss, by Red Hat
My blog: http://mickaelistria.wordpress.com
My Tweets: http://twitter.com/mickaelistria

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Re: Eclipse plugins for flexible custom output language IDE? [message #1034172 is a reply to message #1032770]

Fri, 05 April 2013 05:10

Luk Kuk

Messages: 3
Registered: March 2013

Junior Member

Thanks a lot for reply! It was the point!
So XText can be a good answer and I have to read about all of these frameworks
I think that in my case its not so tricky - I think about Lader-like lang which will be converted into some kind of XML (sth like in Android Dev Kit) and programmer will have possibility to modify this XML. Then this XML doc will be converted into VML.
Has anyone of you - o Eclipse developers - had such a challenge?

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