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Combine Xtext editor with GEF editor [message #1451193]

Thu, 23 October 2014 13:13

Jan Rosczak

Messages: 53
Registered: July 2009
Location: Hamburg, Germany

Member

Hello,

I would like to implement a GEF editor that operates on a Xtext resource where this resource can also be edited with the Xtext editor.

On the internet I found some helpful bits and pieces, but what I am looking for is an example for such an integration, which uses plain GEF and not GMF.

Does such example exist and is it available for me to look at?

Thanks
Jan R.

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Re: Combine Xtext editor with GEF editor [message #1461173 is a reply to message #1451193]

Tue, 04 November 2014 09:26

Jan Koehnlein

Messages: 760
Registered: July 2009
Location: Hamburg

Senior Member

While that's possible to some degree, I strongly advocate to go for a graphical view (without model editing) solution. The reasons are manifold, you might want to have a look at multiple presentations I had on that topic, e.g.
http://www.slideshare.net/schwurbel/xtext-diagrams-and-ux
http://www.slideshare.net/schwurbel/a-fresh-look-at-graphical-editing-12183802
or
http://www.slideshare.net/schwurbel/graphical-views-for-xtext
In any case, you should choose synchronization points of the editors wisely (which is impossible from my point of view).

The last slide deck contains three important rules with code examples on what you have to know from the Xtext side:
1) Use IXtextDocument tranactions
2) Never store direct references to EObjects (use URIs instead)
3) Use Xtext helper classes to access the EObject at a certain text position.

Into the bargain, you might want to have a look at two frameworks I've built for creating graphical views on Xtext models, namely the GEF-based
Generic Graph View https://github.com/JanKoehnlein/Generic-Graph-View
and the more modern JavaFX-based
FXDiagram https://github.com/JanKoehnlein/FXDiagram

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