ArchEdit: A Syntax-Directed Editor for xADL Documents

ArchEdit is a graphical, syntax-directed editor for xADL documents. It uses a tree-based graphical user interface similar to many XML editors or Microsoft's Regedit. Like Regedit, it is a low-level tool for editing architecture documents. It does not enforce semantic constraints on architecture descriptions, and is primarily useful for low-level inspection and editing of such descriptions. The advantage of this tool is that it automatically adapts itself to new xADL schemas when the language is extended. So, new or enhanced builds of ArchStudio do not require ArchEdit to be changed.

An ArchEdit screenshot is shown here:

Architects can navigate the architecture description by expanding and collapsing nodes in the tree view in the left panel. As nodes are selected, editable attributes and elements containing architecture data appear in the right panel. If a node is an XLink (a link between two disconnected nodes in the XML document), drag and drop support is provided to edit the link efficiently.

Using ArchEdit

ArchEdit can be invoked from the ArchStudio launcher view, or by right-clicking on any xADL document in the Eclipse Navigator and selecting Open With > ArchEdit.

The ArchEdit interface is most analogous to the Windows Registry Editor interface. The left pane shows the document in a tree-format. Elements with children (or the potential for children) are depicted as folders with an "expand" control next to them. Elements without the potential for children have document icons. For convenience, if an element has an identifier (ID), the identifier will appear in parentheses after the element name.

When you click on an element, any attributes of the element will appear in the right pane, ready for editing. If the element is an XLink, an additional section will appear in the right pane, with a link area:

To quickly make a link from the selected element to another element, click-and-drag the link area in the right pane and drop it on the target element in the tree on the left. Note that for this to succeed, the link target must be an element that has an ID. This drag-and-drop operation is just a shortcut for filling out the two fields (type and href) in the XLink panel, of course.

Creating new elements requires clicking an element with the secondary button on your mouse. This is commonly referred to as right-clicking. Macintosh users may have to Option-click the element to get the appropriate result. Right clicking an element will bring up a context menu.

The first menu is the "Remove" option, which allows you to remove an element (and all its children) from its parent.

If the element's type has subtypes defined in the data binding library in use, then those will appear as options for "promotions," as shown in the second section of the menu. Promoting an element from its current type to one of its subtypes usually allows it to have more sub-elements and attributes. The subtypes that are available are defined in the XML schemas used to create the data binding library.

The third section of the menu allows you to add sub-elements to the selected element. For sub-elements with cardinality at-most-one, you will be prohibited from adding more than one sub-element, and the option will appear gray when one has been added, as is seen above. Available new sub-elements appear as selectable menu options. Sub elements appear as children of the given element in the tree.

ArchEdit also responds to all events emitted by xArchADT. Thus, changes to an architecture induced by any other tool in ArchStudio will be reflected in xArchADT automatically.

Contact Us

If you have questions not answered by this website, please feel free to contact the software architectures group at UC Irvine through the ArchStudio developer's (mailman protected) email list at: archstudio-dev [@] uci [.] edu. (Note: You must subscribe to the mail list before you can post to it.)