article

A framework for modeling and implementing visual notations with applications to software engineering

Authors:

Gennaro Costagliola,

Vincenzo Deufemia,

Giuseppe PoleseAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM), Volume 13, Issue 4

Pages 431 - 487

https://doi.org/10.1145/1040291.1040293

Published: 01 October 2004 Publication History

Abstract

We present a framework for modeling visual notations and for generating the corresponding visual programming environments. The framework can be used for modeling the diagrammatic notations of software development methodologies, and to generate visual programming environments with CASE tools functionalities. This is accomplished through an underlying modeling process based on the visual notation syntactic model of eXtended Positional Grammars (XPG, for short), and the associated parsing methodology, XpLR. In particular, the process requires the modeling of the basic elements (visual symbols) of a visual notation, their syntactic properties, the relations between them, the syntactic rules to formally define the set of feasible visual sentences, and a set of semantic routines performing additional checks and translation tasks. Such a process is completely supported by the VLDesk system, which enables the automatic generation of an editor for drawing visual sentences, as well as a processor for their recognition, parsing, and translation into other notations.The proposed framework also provides the basis for the definition of a meta-CASE technology. In fact, we can customize the generated visual programming environment in terms of the supported visual notation, its syntactic properties, and the translation rules. We have used this framework to model several diagrammatic notations used in software development methodologies, including those of the Unified Modeling Language.

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Cited By

Kadu NJadhav P(2023)High performance computing with inter-virtual-machine communicationJournal of Cyber Security Technology10.1080/23742917.2023.22564328:3(191-203)Online publication date: 14-Sep-2023
https://doi.org/10.1080/23742917.2023.2256432
Tuape MHasheela-Mufeti VKayanda AKasurinen J(2021)Software Development in Small Software Companies: Exploring the Usage of Procedures, Techniques, Methods and Models in PracticeProceedings of the 2021 European Symposium on Software Engineering10.1145/3501774.3501779(29-38)Online publication date: 19-Nov-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3501774.3501779
Bock AFrank U(2021)In Search of the Essence of Low-Code: An Exploratory Study of Seven Development Platforms2021 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems Companion (MODELS-C)10.1109/MODELS-C53483.2021.00016(57-66)Online publication date: Oct-2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/MODELS-C53483.2021.00016
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Index Terms

A framework for modeling and implementing visual notations with applications to software engineering
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. Compilers
      1. Translator writing systems and compiler generators
    2. Context specific languages
      1. Visual languages
  2. Software organization and properties
    1. Software system structures
      1. Software system models
        State systems
2. Theory of computation
  1. Semantics and reasoning
    1. Program reasoning
      1. Parsing

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Reviews

Reviewer: David A. Gustafson

Most software development methodologies use diagrams, and users and software engineers look at those diagrams to communicate aspects of the proposed system. Building diagrams with just a general-purpose graphical editor is hard, and having an editor that supports the syntax and semantics of the design notation would be very useful. While few people will ever design a new diagramming notation, the process of being able to generate an editor that understands the syntax and semantics of a new diagram is interesting. This paper describes the work the authors have done to achieve this goal. The paper first describes a formalism for describing visual notations, and a framework for specifying visual notations using extended positional grammars (XPG). This description is long, complex, and not easily understandable by someone unfamiliar with the area and the authors' previous work. Additional examples would have been helpful. Fortunately, there is a good set of references to previous work, by the authors and others. The tool VLDesk is described last. This tool can automatically generate an editor for a design notation, based on a formal specification of the design notation. Screen shots are shown, and the process is described well. The tool is available for download. Unfortunately, help is not available for installation. Online Computing Reviews Service

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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology Volume 13, Issue 4

October 2004

129 pages

ISSN:1049-331X

EISSN:1557-7392

DOI:10.1145/1040291

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Copyright © 2004 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 01 October 2004

Published in TOSEM Volume 13, Issue 4

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Cited By

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https://doi.org/10.1080/23742917.2023.2256432
Tuape MHasheela-Mufeti VKayanda AKasurinen J(2021)Software Development in Small Software Companies: Exploring the Usage of Procedures, Techniques, Methods and Models in PracticeProceedings of the 2021 European Symposium on Software Engineering10.1145/3501774.3501779(29-38)Online publication date: 19-Nov-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3501774.3501779
Bock AFrank U(2021)In Search of the Essence of Low-Code: An Exploratory Study of Seven Development Platforms2021 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems Companion (MODELS-C)10.1109/MODELS-C53483.2021.00016(57-66)Online publication date: Oct-2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/MODELS-C53483.2021.00016
Bock AFrank U(2021)Low-Code PlatformBusiness & Information Systems Engineering10.1007/s12599-021-00726-8Online publication date: 15-Nov-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-021-00726-8
Costagliola GDe Rosa MFuccella VMinas M(2021)Visual exploration of visual parser executionMultimedia Tools and Applications10.1007/s11042-021-10624-681:1(299-317)Online publication date: 18-Mar-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s11042-021-10624-6
Deufemia VRisi M(2020)Multi-Domain Recognition of Hand-Drawn Diagrams Using Hierarchical ParsingMultimodal Technologies and Interaction10.3390/mti40300524:3(52)Online publication date: 14-Aug-2020
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Nachreiner LRaschke AStegmaier MTichy MGuerra EIovino L(2020)CouchEditProceedings of the 23rd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems: Companion Proceedings10.1145/3417990.3421401(1-5)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2020
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Costagliola GDe Rosa MFuccella VMinas M(2020)ParVisProceedings of the 2020 International Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces10.1145/3399715.3399853(1-5)Online publication date: 28-Sep-2020
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Costagliola GDeufemia VFerrucci FGravino C(2020)Run-Time Conflict Detection in Visual Language ParsingJournal of Computer Languages10.1016/j.cola.2020.100943(100943)Online publication date: Feb-2020
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Van Mierlo SVangheluwe HDenil JSon YHaas P(2019)The fundamentals of domain-specific simulation language engineeringProceedings of the Winter Simulation Conference10.5555/3400397.3400516(1482-1494)Online publication date: 8-Dec-2019
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