RE: [ve-dev] Deveopement on top of VE

[Dave Orme <DaveO@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>  I want to develop a GUI tool using the VE framework which 
> will show my components  in the palette like the SWING 
> components. By components are essentially java beans. Could 
> somebody give me any pointers for how to start.

1) You're already at the right place.  Ask us anything you like; we'll try
to help.

2) Make sure you've downloaded and installed the latest VE driver based on
M8 (the thing we're testing right now).  [Gili, this is available, right?]

3) There are directions on my blog describing how to install everything so
you can hack on VE.  Just jump to
http://www.coconut-palm-software.com/the_visual_editor for this and more.
This will hopefully get formalized into a series of articles for the VE web
site soon, but for now, this is where you've got to go.

> I want to 
> develop something very similar to the existing VE SWING 
> reference implementation but using my own components. I have 
> only a couple layouts and what I want to generate is not JAVA 
> code but XML. Where can I find documentation for the API of 
> VE? What parts of the VE feature should I use for develop a 
> non-Java code generator? Thanks in advance -Anupama 

I'll leave the specifics of this question for someone else. :-)

But in general, VE uses a pretty strict MVC architecture.  So your code is
doing one of the following:

1) Manipulating the model.

2) Keeping a view/editor synchronized with the model.

3) Interfacing with GEF

The model is defined in terms of EMF.  This sounds really hard at first,
until you realize that the EMF stuff is really just a language-neutral
reimplementation of java.lang.reflect.  So it's really just about learning a
new vocabulary for the stuff you already know how to say using
java.lang.reflect.

Your XML code is just a view/editor of the EMF model.  You'll use the
Eclipse editor toolkit to create an XML editor and use model change events
from the VEP model to keep your editor synchronized with the VEP model.
Similarly, your XML editor will make changes to the EMF model when someone
manipulates the XML.

I'm not sure how you will add a new layout manager to VE.  One of the other
developers will have to get you started there.


Regards,

Dave Orme
VEP project lead