Codegeneration patch, take '2' (Was: Re: [Uml-devel] Codegeneration patch.. updated)

[Brian Thomas]

On Tuesday 26 August 2003 08:08 am, Jonathan Riddell wrote:
>
> I like what I see, but it obviously still need a lot of work.  It
> crashes when adding classes (need to do it through the tree view) and
> I couldn't get it to actually generate any code.  
>

	Hmm. You should be able to generate Java code, using either the
	wizard OR the menu selection. XML/CPP code doesnt generate, and
	indeed, will cause many crashes for many things you may do. Where
	you adding classes with the CPP generator selected?

> The formatting options is looking good as is the language options.
> The Class->View Code is groovy, nice highlighting and all.  
>

	Did you try double clicking on the stuff that was highlighted in color?
	That should bring up an Umbrello pop-up for editing the particular
	attribute. Comments on what these edit popups should look like would 
	be good.

> Now KDE has a feature freeze on September 1st.  So I'm curious to know
> Brian if you think we could put this stuff in CVS and then you/we
> would be able to make it useable by KDE release in Decembre.
> Otherwise it means either a code branch or waiting for KDE 3.3 or KDE
> 4.

	Well, I believe that I can get it in, and get it stable and working well by 
	december.

>
> How easy/difficult is it to update the existing code generators?

	Well, to the extent that an existing code generator creates code like Java
	(e.g. has operations/accessor methods/field declarations/etc) it should be
	fairly easy now (the hard part in all of this was making sure that the code
	generation classes where sync'd appropriately with the uml classes).

	I believe that a wrapper can be made to bring along the legacy' generators
	that arent upgraded to the new system. This wrapper would allow for 
	all the old functionality (e.g. simple code generation/code wizard) to work,
	and would 'turn off' the new parts (some options in the code generation 
	settings dialog like whitespace/formatting control, the code viewer, no making
	edits to the bodies of accessors/operations, and no saving new options for
	generation of code for that language/project).

	The remaining stuff is not that formidable (IMO) and comprises:

	1. Clean up the code viewer interface
	2. Make legacy wrapper for older code generators
	3. "port" a few more generators, I have in mind XMLschema/CPP and 
              possibly Perl generators
	4. Allow saving of edits to code in a project via the XMI file.
	5. Clean up debugging statements, debug code, improve overall useability.


>
> Is there anything else you'd like me to comment on?

	Well, I guess I'd like some concensus from the group as to whether or not to 
	'go for it' with this code. I can say that I plan to be around on this project until
	2004 (at least) to support integration of this code in.

	=b.t.