Patrick Cooney's Weblog

2005-06-19

As promised, I've moved my DSL Tools project to use compartment shapes. A little hacking was involved to get my custom editor integrated, but an otherwise painless experience! For those just joining us, read the background on my project in this post. For those already in the know, here are some example screenshots of a Concern Map for a Windows Form / UI process pattern:

Collapsed Concern Map diagram
A collapsed diagram

The widget in the top right allows expand / collapse of the node, which really simplifies big diagrams with many selectors. People just using the diagram to navigate around a system (rather than editing the diagram) never have to see how the sausage gets made.

Expanded Concern Map diagram
An expanded node

Expanding a node exposes the selectors which bind the node to development artifacts. These are grouped together in a compartment under the heading 'Selector Expressions'.

Adding a selector to a node
Adding a selector to an expanded node

Selectors are added straight into the compartment (above) and edited through a properties window (below).

Concern Map with editor window
The selector editor window

I still need to tidy up the editor window and tweak a few things, but will get another build and screencast together in the next week.

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