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GMF and Xtext integration
Intro
This is proposal page for my GSoC idea to integrate Xtext and GMF
Project Title
Xtext and GMF editor integration to support models with partially textual and partially graphical syntax
Project Summary
Aim of this project is to conduct research on how to integrate Xtext editors and GMF editors. Such integration would allow do define DSL that has both graphical and textual parts in its syntax. DSL that use mixed syntax already exists in some scope, e.g. UML use OCL for defining constraints. Many UML tools allow for editing class attributes in textual way, e.g. user can write "+books : Book [0..*]" and don't have to set visibility, bounds and type by using property editor. As output this project should show how to develop such integration and provide contribution or at least suggestion of changes to GMF and Xtext to ease such integration.
Detailed Description
Project would be mostly based on research and proof-of-concept development. It aim to deliver:
Integration for implementing mixed GMF/XText editors that allow for
- Editing same model but describe different parts of metamodel (like editing attributes in UML tools)
- Editing different metamodels but one is linked with another (like OCL in UML)
Integration of Xtext dsl editor in GMF editor that
- Can be used as editor in property page (OCL like)
- Can be used as editor for diagram elements (TEF like, link below)
There is a project that does such integration but with its own dsl generator http://www2.informatik.hu-berlin.de/sam/meta-tools/tef/tool.html
This project seems hard and risky, but it can also bring great value IMHO. It would probably involve changes in templates created with 2 version of Xpand. One from GMF and one from M2T.