[Uml-devel] serialization, properties and feature priorities

[tomas.walch at se.transport.bombardier.com]

Hi!

I think it would be a really good idea to take advantage of Qt Properties for
the UML objects. Then if someone adds a property to a class the serialization
methods don't have to be rewritten since they can be made to ask the Meta
object-system for the properties. I guess you'd really only need one
serialization method as a matter of fact, and the same is true for saving to XMI
as well. Iit won't work for the binary file format but I'm thinking by the time
(2.x?) we get around to writing all these Q_PROPERTY-macros that support is no
longer necessary. Another nice aspect of using qt properties is that a generic
interface for manipulating all kinds of UML objects' properties will be easy to
implement (like for widgets in Qt Designer, that window can actually be
re-used). Qt parent-child relations between the UML objects is also more
flexible than todays implementation. All in all something for a new object
model.

About feature priorites: Why can't you assign a priority when you create a
feature request? At least I can't, maybe if you're admin you can. I can change
the priorities later though so it's kinda strange. Anyway, we should need a
definition of what the different priorities mean, like 9 is really compulsory
for the next realease, 7 is for the minor realease after that, 5 is for next
major realease and 3 is just a reminder of something nice but not so necessary.
Whatever the scale used it would be good to get it up on sf and sort all the
existing request accordingly.


/Tomas Walch