FW: What I would like GME to be

[GME]

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Aditya Agrawal  
Sent:	Friday, September 27, 2002 10:07 PM
To:	GME Group
Subject:	RE: What I would like GME to be

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From: 	Akos Ledeczi
Sent: 	Thursday, September 26, 2002 5:48:26 PM
To: 	GME Group
Subject: 	RE: What I would like GME to be
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From: 	Aditya Agrawal
Sent: 	Thursday, September 26, 2002 5:32:24 PM
To: 	GME Group
Subject: 	What I would like GME to be
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Dear friends,

Since quite a few of us have registered to this group, I will take the opportunity for spilling my ideas. 

1. I would like to break the GME into the Model View Controller pattern where the Model is the MGA layer. The View is GME (and possibly more viewer and a separate controller, so that plug-in and other external codes can get access and control the models. 
[Akos Ledeczi]  

How is NOT like that now? Please, elaborate.

[Adi]  

I will try and describe what I meant. I guess GME fits the Model/ View/ Control architecture with model -> mga file, view -> GME and controller -> com layer and I stand corrected. I was trying to say that as a programmer I can neither subscribe to GME events nor send commands or messages to GME. For example,  the search plug-in made by Sachin, displays the results of a search in a dialog box, but it cannot tell GME it bring up  the model when a user clicks on model in the dialog box. I have seen similar needs while using the decorator when I would like to catch mouse events and also perform some actions on GME. 

I summaries it I would like to say that GME should have an API access to control the viewing of the models.

2. Another change that I would like is to separate the Metamodel into a class diagram and a visualization part and not have the visualization information as part of the class diagram. I would like to have a UML class diagram and another sheet that probably tells us how to visualize the particular classes. 

[Akos Ledeczi]  

When we designed the current metamodeling environment we went through similar
discussions. What we have now was the result. Do you have specific suggestions
on how to accomplish this? I don;t know how many of you remember the previous
version (Greg's work), but that may have been closer to this principle, but it was
much harder to use and you had to specify info multiple times.

So, the principle is great, the question is how to realize it…


[Adi]   

I have some ideas as to how to realize  t. So I created a metamodel. It is a first cut at a new GME metamodeling philosophy. I would like to point out the advantages of having a UML based approach

1. The UML class diagram describes how the objects are to be organized physically. (Without having to bother about the visualization)
2. The Visualization specifies how the objects should be visualized in GME,  (The visualization is a separate aspect of the model). We can possible have different visualizations of the same models. 
3. This approach gives more power and flexibility, for example
	1. Ability to have a set which is also as a reference 
	2. Ability to have a reference to an association class and visualize it as an entity and many more such permutations
4. There Is a larger community that knows UML than the current MetaGME2000. 

I have attached a zip file that contains the proposed metamodel, an example model and icons. Please check it out and let me know what you guys think about it.

What do you all think about these and how difficult is it going to be to introduce these changes in the current GME? 

Adi

[Adi]   
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