| <!DOCTYPE html> | |
| <html lang="en"> | |
| <!-- | |
| /******************************************************************************** | |
| ** Copyright (c) 2012 Obeo. | |
| ** All rights reserved. This program and the accompanying materials | |
| ** are made available under the terms of the Eclipse Public License v1.0 | |
| ** which accompanies this distribution, and is available at | |
| ** http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html | |
| ** | |
| ** Contributors: | |
| ** Stephane Begaudeau (Obeo) - initial API and implementation | |
| *********************************************************************************/ | |
| --> | |
| <head> | |
| <meta charset="utf-8"> | |
| <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge,chrome=1"> | |
| <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"> | |
| <meta name="description" content=""> | |
| <meta name="author" content="Stéphane Bégaudeau"> | |
| <!-- IE6-8 support of HTML elements --> | |
| <!--[if lt IE 9]> | |
| <script src="http://html5shim.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js"></script> | |
| <![endif]--> | |
| <link href="../../assets/css/bootstrap.css" rel="stylesheet"> | |
| <link href="../../assets/css/docs.css" rel="stylesheet"> | |
| <title>Acceleo</title> | |
| </head> | |
| <body> | |
| <div class="container"> | |
| <section id="domainfree"> | |
| <div class="page-header"> | |
| <h1>Domain Free <small>generate anything from any EMF models</small></h1> | |
| </div> | |
| <h2>Any kind of EMF model...</h2> | |
| <p> | |
| Most code generators are either generating one kind of technology (e.g. Java) or using only one kind of models | |
| (e.g. UML). Acceleo does not restrict you to a specific domain, you want to generate code from: | |
| </p> | |
| <ul> | |
| <li>UML models? supported!</li> | |
| <li>Ecore models? supported!</li> | |
| <li>Meta-models in your workspace with dynamic instances (".xmi")? supported!</li> | |
| <li>A custom made meta-model? supported!</li> | |
| <li>A custom made meta-model with depencencies to UML? supported!</li> | |
| <li>UML models with profils? supported!</li> | |
| <li>Several custom made meta-models with depencencies from one to the other? supported!</li> | |
| </ul> | |
| <div class="alert alert-info"> | |
| <strong>Tips and tricks:</strong> put the cursor of your mouse hover the pictures to see the legend. | |
| </div> | |
| <ul class="thumbnails"> | |
| <li class="span8"> | |
| <a href="../../assets/img/features/domain-free-uml-gen.png" class="thumbnail"> | |
| <img src="../../assets/img/features/domain-free-uml-gen_th.png" alt="" onmouseover="this.src='../../assets/img/features/domain-free-uml-gen_th-hover.png'" onmouseout="this.src='../../assets/img/features/domain-free-uml-gen_th.png'"> | |
| </a> | |
| </li> | |
| <li class="span4"> | |
| <a href="../../assets/img/features/domain-free-scalamodel-gen.png" class="thumbnail"> | |
| <img src="../../assets/img/features/domain-free-scalamodel-gen_th.png" alt="" onmouseover="this.src='../../assets/img/features/domain-free-scalamodel-gen_th-hover.png'" onmouseout="this.src='../../assets/img/features/domain-free-scalamodel-gen_th.png'"> | |
| </a> | |
| </li> | |
| <li class="span4"> | |
| <a href="../../assets/img/features/domain-free-ecore-gen.png" class="thumbnail"> | |
| <img src="../../assets/img/features/domain-free-ecore-gen_th.png" alt="" onmouseover="this.src='../../assets/img/features/domain-free-ecore-gen_th-hover.png'" onmouseout="this.src='../../assets/img/features/domain-free-ecore-gen_th.png'"> | |
| </a> | |
| </li> | |
| </ul> | |
| <h2>Built with the tools of your choice...</h2> | |
| <p> | |
| Since Acceleo is based on the popular framework EMF, you can create your model with any kind of EMF based tool | |
| and use it as the input of your generation. You want to generate code from a model created with: | |
| </p> | |
| <ul> | |
| <li>The good ol' EMF tree based editor? supported!</li> | |
| <li>A graphical modeler? supported!</li> | |
| <li>A text based editor realized with Xtext? supported!</li> | |
| <li>A CDO based application used to create remote models? supported!</li> | |
| </ul> | |
| <ul class="thumbnails"> | |
| <li class="span6"> | |
| <a href="../../assets/img/features/domain-free-graphical-model.png" class="thumbnail"> | |
| <img src="../../assets/img/features/domain-free-graphical-model_th.png" alt="" onmouseover="this.src='../../assets/img/features/domain-free-graphical-model_th-hover.png'" onmouseout="this.src='../../assets/img/features/domain-free-graphical-model_th.png'"> | |
| </a> | |
| </li> | |
| <li class="span6"> | |
| <a href="../../assets/img/features/domain-free-treebased-model.png" class="thumbnail"> | |
| <img src="../../assets/img/features/domain-free-treebased-model_th.png" alt="" onmouseover="this.src='../../assets/img/features/domain-free-treebased-model_th-hover.png'" onmouseout="this.src='../../assets/img/features/domain-free-treebased-model_th.png'"> | |
| </a> | |
| </li> | |
| </ul> | |
| <ul class="thumbnails"> | |
| <li class="span4"> | |
| <a href="../../assets/img/features/domain-free-textbased-model.png" class="thumbnail"> | |
| <img src="../../assets/img/features/domain-free-textbased-model_th.png" alt="" onmouseover="this.src='../../assets/img/features/domain-free-textbased-model_th-hover.png'" onmouseout="this.src='../../assets/img/features/domain-free-textbased-model_th.png'"> | |
| </a> | |
| </li> | |
| <li class="span4"> | |
| <a href="../../assets/img/features/domain-free-graphical-model-2.png" class="thumbnail"> | |
| <img src="../../assets/img/features/domain-free-graphical-model-2_th.png" alt="" onmouseover="this.src='../../assets/img/features/domain-free-graphical-model-2_th-hover.png'" onmouseout="this.src='../../assets/img/features/domain-free-graphical-model-2_th.png'"> | |
| </a> | |
| </li> | |
| <li class="span4"> | |
| <a href="../../assets/img/features/domain-free-cdo-model.png" class="thumbnail"> | |
| <img src="../../assets/img/features/domain-free-cdo-model_th.png" alt="" onmouseover="this.src='../../assets/img/features/domain-free-cdo-model_th-hover.png'" onmouseout="this.src='../../assets/img/features/domain-free-cdo-model_th.png'"> | |
| </a> | |
| </li> | |
| </ul> | |
| <h2>To generate anything you want...</h2> | |
| <p> | |
| Now that you have your input model, what kind of technology do you want to generate? With its template based approach | |
| you can defined the kind of code generated, and you can customize it to respect your own style of coding. Do you want | |
| to generate: | |
| </p> | |
| <ul> | |
| <li>Java? supported! | |
| <li>Scala? supported!</li> | |
| <li>Javascript? supported!</li> | |
| <li>HTML? supported!</li> | |
| <li>Python? supported!</li> | |
| </ul> | |
| <p> | |
| Acceleo does not restrict the kind of code generated, there is only one rule: | |
| </p> | |
| <div class="well"><h2><b>If you can write it, Acceleo can generate it!</b></h2></div> | |
| <ul class="thumbnails"> | |
| <li class="span8"> | |
| <a href="../../assets/img/features/domain-free-scala-code.png" class="thumbnail"> | |
| <img src="../../assets/img/features/domain-free-scala-code_th.png" alt="" onmouseover="this.src='../../assets/img/features/domain-free-scala-code_th-hover.png'" onmouseout="this.src='../../assets/img/features/domain-free-scala-code_th.png'"> | |
| </a> | |
| </li> | |
| <li class="span4"> | |
| <a href="../../assets/img/features/domain-free-python-code.png" class="thumbnail"> | |
| <img src="../../assets/img/features/domain-free-python-code_th.png" alt="" onmouseover="this.src='../../assets/img/features/domain-free-python-code_th-hover.png'" onmouseout="this.src='../../assets/img/features/domain-free-python-code_th.png'"> | |
| </a> | |
| </li> | |
| <li class="span4"> | |
| <a href="../../assets/img/features/domain-free-javascript-code.png" class="thumbnail"> | |
| <img src="../../assets/img/features/domain-free-javascript-code_th.png" alt="" onmouseover="this.src='../../assets/img/features/domain-free-javascript-code_th-hover.png'" onmouseout="this.src='../../assets/img/features/domain-free-javascript-code_th.png'"> | |
| </a> | |
| </li> | |
| </ul> | |
| </section> | |
| <section id="standalone"> | |
| <div class="page-header"> | |
| <h1>Stand Alone <small>get free of Eclipse</small></h1> | |
| </div> | |
| <h2><b>Launch your Acceleo generator from any Java based application!</b></h2> | |
| <ul class="thumbnails"> | |
| <li class="span5"> | |
| In the beginning, you will want to write quickly an efficient generator but once you'll be done, you will need to | |
| deliver it to your customers and for that you will have to build it and to embed it inside an application. | |
| If you are aiming to use your generator within Eclipse, Acceleo can create an Eclipse based UI to integrate your | |
| generator in an Eclipse instance and it also let you build easily you generator to use it as an Eclipse plugins | |
| but some of your end-users may need to use your generator out of Eclipse. For those use cases, Acceleo also supports | |
| the compilation and the launch of an Acceleo generator out of Eclipse. If you can call Java source code, you can | |
| launch an Acceleo generator. | |
| </li> | |
| <li class="span7"> | |
| <img src="../../assets/img/features/stand-alone-lib.png" alt="" class="thumbnail"> | |
| </li> | |
| </ul> | |
| <div class="alert alert-info"> | |
| <strong>Tips and tricks:</strong> Learn how to configure your generator to use it out of Eclipse | |
| <a href="../reference/standalone.html">here</a>. | |
| </div> | |
| </section> | |
| <section id="tooling"> | |
| <div class="page-header"> | |
| <h1>Eclipse Tooling <small>integrated in your favorite IDE</small></h1> | |
| </div> | |
| <h2>Acceleo Project</h2> | |
| <ul class="thumbnails"> | |
| <li class="span5"> | |
| <p> | |
| When you want to start a code generation project with Acceleo, your first action is to create an Acceleo project. | |
| Inside of an Acceleo project, you can place Acceleo modules and the builder that comes with the Acceleo project will | |
| automatically compile the modules for you. The Acceleo project is also a container for several key preferences like | |
| the kind of serialization wanted for Acceleo modules or the severity of the error detection during the compilation. | |
| </p> | |
| </li> | |
| <li class="span7"> | |
| <img src="../../assets/img/features/eclipse-tooling-acceleo-project.png" alt="" class="thumbnail"> | |
| </li> | |
| </ul> | |
| <h2>Acceleo Perspective</h2> | |
| <p> | |
| The Acceleo perspective defines the ideal workbench to work on an Acceleo generator. It contains at its center the Acceleo | |
| editor surrounded by several views dedicated to the edition of a code generator. You can find in the Acceleo perspective | |
| the following views: | |
| </p> | |
| <ul> | |
| <li>The "Package Explorer" view</li> | |
| <li>The "Outline" view</li> | |
| <li>The "Interpreter" view</li> | |
| <li>The "Problems" view</li> | |
| <li>The "Error Log" view</li> | |
| <li>The "Result" view</li> | |
| <li>The "Overrides" view</li> | |
| <li>The "Generation Patterns" view</li> | |
| </ul> | |
| <p> | |
| Those view will let you test manipulate the files in your Acceleo project, test Acceleo expressions, have a look at the | |
| problems and errors found in your project, see the traceability of your generated code and use code generation design | |
| patterns. | |
| </p> | |
| <ul class="thumbnails"> | |
| <li class="span8"> | |
| <img src="../../assets/img/features/perspective-doc.png" alt=""> | |
| </li> | |
| <li class="span4"> | |
| <img src="../../assets/img/features/first-view-block.png" alt=""> | |
| </li> | |
| <li class="span4"> | |
| <img src="../../assets/img/features/second-view-block.png" alt=""> | |
| </li> | |
| </ul> | |
| <p> | |
| The Acceleo tooling features a code search system that let's you find out all the references to a selected | |
| template or query. | |
| </p> | |
| <h2>Acceleo Editor</h2> | |
| <p> | |
| The Acceleo editor is the center of the Acceleo tooling. It is associated with Acceleo modules (".mtl" files) and provides | |
| all the features of a modern programming editor to make you more productive when developing a code generator. As such, you | |
| can find in the Acceleo editor features like real time error detection, syntax highlighting, code completion, | |
| code navigation, a dynamic outline, etc. | |
| </p> | |
| <ul class="thumbnails"> | |
| <li class="span8"> | |
| <img src="../../assets/img/features/editor.png" alt=""> | |
| </li> | |
| <li class="span4"> | |
| You can also change the colors used by the Acceleo editor in the Acceleo preference menu available in the Window -> Preferences | |
| -> Acceleo menu. | |
| </li> | |
| </ul> | |
| <h2>Quick fixes</h2> | |
| <p> | |
| The Acceleo editor also features support for "quick fixes". Thanks to the "Ctrl+1" shortcut, you can have access to | |
| solutions to basic problems in a few seconds. Those quick fixes will let you for example define a new template or a new | |
| query to replace an unknown operation that you may be trying to call in your module. | |
| </p> | |
| <h2>Refactoring</h2> | |
| <p> | |
| The Acceleo tooling provides several refactoring tools to help you rename or move your modules, templates and | |
| queries within your project easily. | |
| </p> | |
| <br /> | |
| <br /> | |
| </section> | |
| <section id="javaservices"> | |
| <div class="page-header"> | |
| <h1>Java Services</h1> | |
| </div> | |
| <p> | |
| Acceleo lets you use Java source code to compute complexe operation that may be impossible to realize using the | |
| Acceleo language. As such, you can be sure that you will be able to generate even the most complex requests. | |
| </p> | |
| <p> | |
| In order to use a Java service, you need to use the Acceleo operation "invoke" in order to tell Acceleo to call your Java | |
| method and give you the result. Java services are limited to parameters and return value with the a type from one of the | |
| meta-models used in the generator or a "primitive type" (String, Integer, Real, Boolean, etc..). | |
| </p> | |
| <br /> | |
| <br /> | |
| </section> | |
| <section id="debugger"> | |
| <div class="page-header"> | |
| <h1>Debug <small>let's hunt bugs!</small></h1> | |
| </div> | |
| <p> | |
| In order to catch bugs, Acceleo contains a debugger that can be used easily to monitor a generation and stop at user defined | |
| breakpoints. This debugger can let you move instructions by instructions in the execution of your module and you can even have | |
| a look at the state of your variable. | |
| </p> | |
| <p> | |
| you can launch an Acceleo generator in debug by using the "Debug As..." menu to launch the generation instead of the "Run As..." | |
| menu. If you have launched the generation with the default "Acceleo Plug-in Application" launcher, the Acceleo modules will | |
| be debugged but if you use the advanced stand alone Java launcher, the Java code behind the curtain will be debugged. | |
| </p> | |
| <div class="alert alert-info"> | |
| <strong>Tips and tricks:</strong> An Acceleo generation being a workspace modifying operation, you will not be able to modify | |
| the workspace during the generation. If you try to create a new file for example, the platform will make you wait after the | |
| completion of the generation to create the file. | |
| </div> | |
| <br /> | |
| <br /> | |
| </section> | |
| <section id="interpreter"> | |
| <div class="page-header"> | |
| <h1>Interpreter <small>evaluate all your Acceleo expressions in real time</small></h1> | |
| </div> | |
| <p> | |
| Starting with Acceleo 3.2.0, you are now able to find the Interpreter view in the Acceleo tooling. Thanks to this view, you can use | |
| the Acceleo language to test and evaluate directly Acceleo expressions without having to build and run a whole code generator. This | |
| view is also extensible and as such, you can contribute your own evaluation language very easily. | |
| </p> | |
| <p> | |
| The interpreter is easily exitensible to let other person contribute their own language to use to manipulate EMF based elements. | |
| </p> | |
| <div class="alert alert-info"> | |
| <strong>Tips and tricks:</strong> Detailed explanations of the Acceleo interpreter (Eclipse Wiki). | |
| </div> | |
| <br /> | |
| <br /> | |
| </section> | |
| <section id="override"> | |
| <div class="page-header"> | |
| <h1>Override <small>static and dynamic override</small></h1> | |
| </div> | |
| <p> | |
| With static override, you can easily re-use the content of an existing module and change a piece of its original behavior. | |
| Dynamic override is on a whole different level as it let you change the behavior of an existing generator by defining templates | |
| that will replace existing templates of the generator. This way, like with aspect oriented programming, you can patch an existing | |
| generator built, certified and deployed on your customers computer without having to change the original generator. | |
| </p> | |
| <div class="alert alert-info"> | |
| <strong>Tips and tricks:</strong> Have a look at the best practices guide to see how to use both behaviors. | |
| </div> | |
| <br /> | |
| <br /> | |
| </section> | |
| <section id="traceability"> | |
| <div class="page-header"> | |
| <h1>Traceability <small>locate the origins of your generated code</small></h1> | |
| </div> | |
| <p> | |
| One of the most important feature of Acceleo is its ability to compute the traceability of the generated code during the generation. | |
| Thanks to its traceability generation engine, you can have a look at the model elements and the part of your generator that have been | |
| used to generate every single pieces of text. | |
| </p> | |
| <br /> | |
| <br /> | |
| </section> | |
| <section id="incremental"> | |
| <div class="page-header"> | |
| <h1>Incremental Generation <small>protect your changes to the generated code</small></h1> | |
| </div> | |
| <p> | |
| Acceleo let you define protected area to give your end users specific areas where they can modify the generated code. | |
| You can initialize those protected area with a default piece of code and let your user know that they can safely modify | |
| the code protected. | |
| </p> | |
| <p> | |
| Acceleo also let you use JMerge for Java files to let you precisly determined thanks to documentation tags (@generated | |
| and @generate NOT) which features should be considered as user code and thus be protected from change during the next generation. | |
| </p> | |
| <div class="alert alert-info"> | |
| <strong>Tips and tricks:</strong> The Java launcher class generated by Acceleo to let you launch your generator is also | |
| using those mechanisms. | |
| </div> | |
| <br /> | |
| <br /> | |
| </section> | |
| <section id="userinterface"> | |
| <div class="page-header"> | |
| <h1>User Interface <small>create an user interface for your generator in 30s</small></h1> | |
| </div> | |
| <p> | |
| If you wish to integrate your Acceleo generator inside of Eclipse for your customers, so that they won't have to manipulate an Acceleo | |
| project, you can use a wizard provided by Acceleo to create a basic Eclipse user interface for your generator. | |
| </p> | |
| <p> | |
| You can create this user interface project with the following instructions. Right click on an Acceleo generator and select | |
| File -> New -> Project -> Acceleo Model to Text -> Acceleo UI Launcher -> Next -> Next -> Next. There you can select the name | |
| of your generator, the kind of file that should be used for the generation (*.uml for an UML generator) and where the code | |
| will be generated, by default, it will be generated in a folder named "src-gen" located at the root of the project containing the input model. | |
| </p> | |
| <br /> | |
| <br /> | |
| </section> | |
| <section id="build"> | |
| <div class="page-header"> | |
| <h1>Build <small>continuous integration</small></h1> | |
| </div> | |
| <p> | |
| Within Eclipse, an Acceleo project automatically builds your modules but you may want to have your Acceleo generators inside of | |
| a continuous integration system. In order to do that, Acceleo provides support for stand alone maven compilation that can be | |
| plugged easily inside any maven based build. | |
| </p> | |
| <div class="alert alert-info"> | |
| <strong>Tips and tricks:</strong> Look at the Acceleo wiki on eclipse.org to have more information on the maven integration for Acceleo. | |
| </div> | |
| <br /> | |
| <br /> | |
| </section> | |
| <footer class="footer"> | |
| <p> | |
| The material in these guides are Copyright (c) 2008, 2012 Obeo. This material is available under the Eclipse Public License v1.0 | |
| </p> | |
| </footer> | |
| </div> | |
| </body> | |
| </html> |