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

[Dr Gili Mendel <gmendel@xxxxxxxxxx>]

blue


------------
Dr. Gili Mendel
IBM
Software Development
RTP Raleigh, NC
(919)543 6408, tie: 441 6408

Dave Orme <DaveO@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent by: ve-dev-admin@xxxxxxxxxxx

04/14/2004 11:59 AM

Please respond to
ve-dev

To	"'ve-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx'" <ve-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>
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Subject	RE: [ve-dev] Deveopement on top of VE

>  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.

There are some documentation in http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/library/techarticles/0302_winchester/winchester.html
on how to extend the VE's palette.  It is a bit old in the sense that
the level of EMF that we now support has changed some of the syntax, but
it will give you the starting point you are looking for.  You can
use the current VE palette as a ref. point (org.eclipse.ve.jfc\palette\javavisualbeanscats.xmi)
and the following in org.eclipse.ve.jfc\plugin.xml
<extension
         point="org.eclipse.ve.java.core.contributors">
      <palette
         
  container="org.eclipse.jdt.launching.JRE_CONTAINER"
         
  categories="palette/javavisualbeanscats.xmi"
         
  loc="last">
      </palette>
   </extension>


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 

There are a few options for you to generate
XML from the full blown XML/Visual round tripping editor for which you
will need to provide a new Visual Editor that combine the two (still using
the existing VE model/targetVM etc.)

Another one, is to use the "Save As"
mechanism, from which you can translate the (EMF) VE model into XML.  Note
that you can searlized the EMF model to XMI with one line of code.  
If you use an IDE to develop VE, you can see the EMF model by following
these steps:

Turn on (tracing in general and) the debug/xmltext
tracing option in your launch configuration of your IDE environment:

On the running environment, go to the VE
pref. Page, and turn on the Show XML Text

The next time you open a class with VE,
you will see the EMF model window:

There are no real good documents on this
(Dave is working on some) besides the code.  But as you go along,
feel free to ask more questions here.



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
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