doc/org.eclipse.emf.parsley.doc/xdoc/documentation/01-Overview.xdoc

chapter:Overview[Overview]

e[EMF Parsley] is a lightweight framework that allows easy and quick UI development based
upon EMF. e[EMF Parsley] is built on top of the EMF Edit framework and it implements features like Trees, Forms and Table builders with
standard JFace databinding, providing a complete component-based toolset.
EMF Parsley can be configured to use all kinds of EMF persistence
implementations (XMI, Teneo, CDO) 
Moreover a DSL allows to easily customize several behaviors in each component.

section:ParsleyComponents[Parsley Components]

e[EMF Parsley] aims to provide a complete set of components to visualize your model with the introspective EMF capabilities
and can be used to easily build forms, viewers or editors. 

There are some components that can be used out-of-the-box and can be considered as a reference implementation
of the mechanisms that are the basis of e[EMF Parsley] itslef. 

ul[
	item[e[Trees] ]
	item[e[Forms] ]
	item[e[Tables] ]
	item[e[Editors] ]
	item[e[Search boxes] coming soon]
]

section:Customize[Customize]

The main feature of e[EMF Parsley] is that you can customize all basic UI behaviours of the components with e[Dependency Injection]
mechanisms (based on link[https://github.com/google/guice][Google Guice]).
You can get more info in the ref:Customizations[Customizations Section], but you don't have to know all details
about the internal implementation to inject your own customization because
e[EMF Parsley] provides a DSL to easy customize your UI, as explained in the next section.

section2:Customizations_DSL[Customize with the DSL]

You can use the DSL by creating a new project with the wizard "Create a new project" -> "EMF Parsley DSL Based project"

img[images/01-new-project-dsl-wizard.png][][ ][] 

Clicking the "Finish" button the wizard will open directly the DSL editor. You can use the content assistant
to discover all features.

img[images/01-dsl-content-assistant.png][][ ][] 

The DSL allows to customize the most relevant behaviors, currently the following are permitted:

ul[
	item[e[parts] lets you define your View Parts: a file e[plugin.xml_emfparsley_gen] will be generated
	that is meant to be synchronized with your own e[plugin.xml]]

	item[e[bindings] section lets you define which implementation will be used with Injection]

	item[e[menu] section lets you define the contextual menu for all viewers (e[trees] and e[tables])]

	item[e[features provider] is used to retrieve the list of feature for a given EClass to build e[tables]
	and e[forms]]

	item[e[viewer content provider] mediates between the viewer's model and the viewer, to provide the
	contents to be shown]

	item[e[Label Provider] is used to retrieve the image and text rapresentation of the objects of a
	tree viewer]

	item[e[Caption Provider] provides captions for each feature (namely, EStructuredFeature) of the object shown in a form,
	in a dialog or in a table row. 
	Different implementations can be defined for e[dialogs], e[forms] and e[tables].]

	item[e[Control Factory] provides a custom implementation of the Controls for each feature shown in a form or a dialog. 
	Different implementations can be defined forfor e[dialogs] and e[forms]]
]

%%section2:Customitations_TheHardWay[The Hard way]
%%
%%If you need a deeper degree of customizations, you can use the injection mechanism based on Google Guice.
%%The framework has been designed for being completly customized in every detail. All you need to do is provide a custom
%%implementation for a class that implements a specific aspect; then you need to write the corresponding
%%e[bind] method to tell the dependency injection mechanism to use your own custom class.
%%You can use the Java editor content assist to discover all bindings. 
%%
%%img[images/01-guice-module-content-assistant.png][][ ][]