| | 1 | = Graphical Model Editor for ProMoT with SVG storage = |
| | 2 | |
| | 3 | Since 1998 ProMoT has a graphical editor made in [http://java.sun.com Java], since 2000 |
| | 4 | we are using [http://gef.tigris.org Graph Editing Framework (GEF)]. |
| | 5 | The graphical attributes are stored directly as attributes of the mathematical model, |
| | 6 | Symbols for modeling entities are stored as GIF-Images (Raster-Format). |
| | 7 | |
| | 8 | There are several inconvenient effects of the current architecture: |
| | 9 | |
| | 10 | * It is difficult to extend the graphical attributes, because for every new thing a |
| | 11 | new storage syntax has to be invented in the MDL. MDL and Lisp have nothing to do with |
| | 12 | Graphics and these attributes just clutter the source code. |
| | 13 | * All graphics must be tied to modeling elements. This means additional graphics as |
| | 14 | explanation, legend or label are not allowed. |
| | 15 | * GIF-icons are a old-fashioned solution. They are not scalable, they are distributed |
| | 16 | as separate files, leading to problems when sending a model to Coworkers. The |
| | 17 | VisualNavigator can't use them in the zooming interface. |
| | 18 | |
| | 19 | As a new proposal it would be good to use SVG as storage for the graphics and just |
| | 20 | couple the graph-like model of the mathematical system (modules, terminals and links) to |
| | 21 | graphical elements of the diagram. |
| | 22 | All information about the layout and the graphical attributes are created and edited in |
| | 23 | the Java-GUI and stored to an SVG-fragment. This fragment is stored in a separate section |
| | 24 | of the source-code and referenced by the `define-module` and `define-terminal` commands. |
| | 25 | |
| | 26 | Icons for module-instances in other model-classes are also created as SVG which can be by default a scaled version of the original view, but can also be reduced with a |
| | 27 | SVG-graphics editor. |
| | 28 | |
| | 29 | |
