Design Decision Editor

As part of Palladio, there is an architectural design decision editor for design decision models. The editor is realized as a JFace/SWT-to-EMF binding, i.e. the elements of the UI (JFace/Forms/SWT) are bound to EMF elements from the decision metamodel.

Screenshot of Decision Editor

Editor Code

• edu.kit.ipd.sdq.decisioneditor

Metamodel

• edu.kit.ipd.sdq.dm
• edu.kit.ipd.sdq.dm.edit -- support for deprecated EMF-generated editor.
• edu.kit.ipd.sdq.dm.editor -- tree-based editor, replaced by editor linked above!

Data Bindings

As pointed out before, the binding between JFace elements and EMF elements is realized via a databinding mechanism. An introductory tutorial can be found here [1].

Primitive Bindings (swt.widget.Text to EString attribute)

 /**** Bind ID attribute ****/
 DataBindingContext bindingContext = new DataBindingContext();
 bindingContext.bindValue(WidgetProperties.text(SWT.Modify).observe(text_ID),
   EMFProperties.value(DecisionPackage.Literals.DECISION__ID).observe(decision));

More complex Bindings (over one navigation)

Rationale is a meta class in the decision metamodel. It can be reached over the reference Decision->Rationale. The displayed text shall be the rationale's description:

 /**** Bind Rationale attribute ****/
 FeaturePath feature = FeaturePath.fromList(
   DecisionPackage.Literals.DECISION__RATIONALE,
   DecisionPackage.Literals.RATIONALE__DESCRIPTION);
 bindingContext.bindValue(
   WidgetProperties.text(SWT.Modify).observe(text_Rationale),
   EMFProperties.value(feature).observe(decision));

Bindings with type conversion (Date <--> String)

The model stores dates as java.util.Date which must be expressed as Strings in the textual representation and vice versa:

 /**** Bind Date attribute ****/
 EMFUpdateValueStrategy t2s = new EMFUpdateValueStrategy();
 t2s.setConverter(new StringToDateConverter());
 
 EMFUpdateValueStrategy s2t = new EMFUpdateValueStrategy();
 s2t.setConverter(new DateToStringConverter());
 	
 bindingContext.bindValue(WidgetProperties.text(SWT.Modify).observe(text_Date), 
 EMFProperties.value(DecisionPackage.Literals.DECISION__TIME_STAMP).observe(decision), t2s, s2t);

Bindings with type conversion (Date <--> String)

A reference of multiplicity 0..* can be realized in a JFace-ListViewer:

 /**** Bind triggered Issues reference ****/
 IListProperty widgetList2 = EMFProperties.list(DecisionPackage.Literals.DECISION__TRIGGER);
 IObservableList input2 = widgetList2.observe(decision);
 	
 triggeredIssuesListViewer.setContentProvider(new ObservableListContentProvider());
 triggeredIssuesListViewer.setLabelProvider(new IssueLabelProvider());  // simple Labelprovider that shows an issue's key as text.
 triggeredIssuesListViewer.setInput(input2);