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<title>EMF Parsley</title> | |
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<p>The EMF Parsley project is a proposed open source project under the <a | |
href="http://www.eclipse.org/projects/project.php?id=modeling">Eclipse Modeling Project</a>.</p> | |
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<p>This proposal is in the Project Proposal Phase (as defined in the | |
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scope. We solicit additional participation and input from the Eclipse | |
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Forum.</p> | |
<h2>Background</h2> | |
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The Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) provides code generation facilities for building tools and applications | |
based on structured data models. | |
Using EMF together with other frameworks like, for instance, JFace and Databinding for the user interface | |
and Teneo or CDO for persistence, we can build powerful model-based UI parts. | |
However, setting up and assembling all these technologies still requires both deep knowledge | |
of most internal details and a considerable amount of time. | |
Moreover, typically, reusing existing UI parts in different applications is | |
not straightforward. | |
Our framework aims at providing a set of reusable out-of-the-box UI components based on EMF, | |
yet highly customizable in a quick way. | |
<h2>Scope</h2> | |
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The scope of this project is | |
<ul> | |
<li>to provide a framework to easily develop | |
UI components based on EMF models, which hides most of | |
the complexity of internal details. </li> | |
<li> | |
to make the developed components highly reusable and customizable via | |
Dependency Injection (in particular, Google Guice).</li> | |
<li> | |
to provide a set of such components | |
(e.g., trees, tables, forms, views and editors) | |
that can be used out-of-the-box | |
and customized (these can also be seen as reference implementations). </li> | |
</ul> | |
We also provide a DSL in order to make all of the above tasks even easier and in | |
a very compact form. The DSL is implemented in Xtext, thus, it comes with rich | |
and powerful tooling. | |
<h2>Description</h2> | |
<p> | |
EMF Parsley provides a framework to easily develop | |
UI components based on EMF models; the framework hides most of | |
the complexity of internal details, in a way that, to create a JFace viewer | |
and connect it to an EMF resource, usually requires a few lines of code. | |
The main design principle underlying this framework is to split responsibilities | |
into small classes (adhering to the Single Responsibility Principle); thus, customizing | |
a single aspect of the components requires | |
to specialize only the class that deals with that specific aspect, not the whole component. | |
This should maximize code reuse and promote a programming style where the | |
classes by the programmer are usually very small and deal with not too many | |
aspects. | |
</p> | |
<p> | |
The framework also comes with some UI components that can be used out-of-the-box | |
(including trees, tables and forms, and view and editor parts). | |
Programmers can rely on these components and customize them, or use them | |
as a reference implementation to build their own components based on | |
our framework. | |
</p> | |
<p> | |
To customize existing components we rely on Dependency Injection, in particular | |
using Google Guice. The configuration and setup of Guice modules uses the same | |
mechanism of Xtext (i.e., binding an implementation class only requires to | |
write a specific "bind" method in the main Guice module class). | |
The initial setup of a project which uses EMF Parsley is done via a | |
project wizard, so that the programmer does not have to deal with these details. | |
</p> | |
<p> | |
Specification of custom behaviors (e.g., label providers, content providers, context menus, etc.) for elements of the EMF model in a component | |
can be made based on their types, but without requiring long cascades of Java | |
"instanceof" and casts: we provide a polymorphic method dispatch mechanism | |
(again, borrowed from Xtext) that allows to write cleaner and declarative code. | |
</p> | |
<p> | |
We also provide a DSL (implemented in Xtext) for making the use of our | |
framework easier: customizations can be specified in a compact form in | |
a single file; from that all of the other Java classes are automatically generated | |
and bound in the Guice module. The DSL provides a fully feature Eclipse editor | |
and, by relying on Xbase, it provides a Java-like language completely integrated | |
with Java and Eclipse JDT. | |
</p> | |
<p> | |
Setting up views (like in the following screenshot) only requires a few lines of | |
Java code. | |
</p> | |
<p><img style="height:auto; width:auto; max-width:750px; max-height:750px;" src="mail-app.png"/></p> | |
<p> | |
Using the DSL (like in the following screenshot) allows to quickly customize | |
the components (the corresponding Java code will be automatically generated | |
by the DSL compiler). | |
</p> | |
<p><img style="height:auto; width:auto; max-width:750px; max-height:750px;" src="emf-components-dsl.png"/></p> | |
<br> | |
<p> | |
Regarding the persistence aspect, the framework can handle a generic EMF persistence implementation, like XMI or Teneo, | |
just providing the EMF Resource's URIs. | |
It also includes a bundle for handling CDO resources, which takes care of CDO Sessions and Transactions transparently. | |
</p> | |
<p> | |
All sources are covered by test, both with JUnit and SWTBot. Tests are already integrated in the Continuous Integration system implemented with Jenkins. | |
</p> | |
<p> | |
Also the building and update site architecture is already setup and implemented with Buckminster. The latest is heavily used throughout the whole development cycle, | |
starting from the workspace and platform materialization up to headless building and continuous | |
integration. | |
</p> | |
<p> | |
In addition to be used to render RCP UI, the framework is out-of-the-box ready to be used for RAP development. | |
</p> | |
<p> | |
The framework that is closer to our proposal is EMF Client Platform. However, while the latter | |
aims at providing a quick way of obtaining a full application based on EMF, EMF Parsley | |
aims at providing single smaller and reusable components. Moreover, our components are | |
not customized via extension points, but using injection with plain Java and with a DSL. | |
</p> | |
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<h2>Why Eclipse?</h2> | |
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<p>This project leverages and integrates very well with many widely-used Eclipse projects | |
(e.g., EMF, JFace, Xtext, CDO). | |
Our purpose is to give it the broader visibility among individuals, developers as well as companies. | |
Eclipse offers the right higher reliability in terms of long-term support, | |
so that it is expected to attract more interest and participation from other parties. | |
This will lead to greater market penetration, while improving quality and reducing development costs.</p> | |
<h2>Initial Contribution</h2> | |
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<p>The initial contribution consists of the following sources, material and architecture already setup for | |
the current EMF Parsley repository at | |
<a href="http://eclipselabs.org/p/emf-components">EclipseLabs</a>, which include: | |
<ul> | |
<li>Basic Components (widgets and parts)</li> | |
<li>EMF persistence (i.e. for XMI or Teneo)</li> | |
<li>CDO persistence</li> | |
<li>DSL Editor and code generator</li> | |
<li>RAP integration bundle</li> | |
<li>Eclipse 4 enabled</li> | |
<li>Examples</li> | |
<li>Help Documentation and Tutorials</li> | |
<li>Tests, Continuous Integration, Build and Update Site infrastructure</li> | |
</ul> | |
<p> | |
<p> | |
Note that at the moment, the packages of our framework do not include org.eclipse.*; | |
we plan to change it from it.rcpvision.emf.components.* to org.eclipse.emf.parsley.* | |
if the proposal is accepted. | |
</p> | |
<h2>Legal Issues</h2> | |
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All contributions will be distributed under the Eclipse Public License. | |
<h2>Committers</h2> | |
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<p>The following individuals are proposed as initial committers to the project:</p> | |
<dl> | |
<dt>Lorenzo Bettini, University of Turin</dt> | |
<dt>Francesco Guidieri, RCP Vision</dt> | |
<dt>Vincenzo Caselli, RCP Vision</dt> | |
</dl> | |
<p>We welcome additional committers and contributions.</p> | |
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<h2>Mentors</h2> | |
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<p>The following Architecture Council members will mentor this | |
project:</p> | |
<ul> | |
<li>Ed Merks</li> | |
<li>Eike Stepper</li> | |
</ul> | |
<h2>Interested Parties</h2> | |
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<p>The following individuals, organisations, companies and projects have | |
expressed interest in this project:</p> | |
<ul> | |
<li><a href="http://www.rcp-vision.com/">RCP Vision</a></li> | |
<li><a href="http://www.egicon.it/">EGICON</a></li> | |
<li>Daniel Golesny</li> | |
</ul> | |
<h2>Project Scheduling</h2> | |
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Initial contribution is ready to be published. | |
<h2>Changes to this Document</h2> | |
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<table> | |
<tr> | |
<th>Date</th> | |
<th>Change</th> | |
</tr> | |
<tr> | |
<td>23-April-2013</td> | |
<td>Eclipse 4 enabling updates, documentation added</td> | |
</tr> | |
<tr> | |
<td>23-April-2013</td> | |
<td>Interested parties added, resize images</td> | |
</tr> | |
<tr> | |
<td>17-January-2013</td> | |
<td>Document created</td> | |
</tr> | |
</table> | |
</body> | |
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