Feature Modeling Capabilities for ViPER Platform

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Feature Modeling Capabilities for ViPER Platform

• Feature Modeling
• Different approaches of Feature Modeling
• Explanation and examples of few
• MetaModel of Feature Modeling for ViPER
• Implementation and Extension of Feature Editor in
  ViPER
• Demo
• Current / Future Development

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Feature Modeling

• Increasingly popular domain in product line
  development
• PL is a set of systems with common
  characteristics. Goal is to improve productivity
  and quality of application development.
• Used for managing common and variable properties
  of a concept and their interdependencies
• Features are primarily used in order to
  discriminate between choices
• A feature can further be decomposed into sub
  features
• Organization of these into a coherent model is
  called Feature Model

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Feature Model

• Feature Model structure requirements by
  generalizing them by concepts
• Purpose is to organize the features in multiple
  levels with increasing details
• Describes a set of valid feature combinations
• Variability defines which combinations are
  allowed
• The variability in feature model is expressed
  through different notations like
• Optional Feature
• Mandatory Feature
• Alternate / Or Relationship
• Require / Exclude Relationship
• Attributes

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Variants of Feature Modeling

• In practice there are number of approaches being
  used for feature modeling
• FODA
• Feature Oriented Domain Analysis
• FORM
• Feature Oriented Reuse Model
• FeatuRSEB
• A combination between FODA and Reuse-Driven
  Software Engineering Business
• RequiLine
• Czarnecki
• Approach by Krzysztof Czarnecki
• A few others as well

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FODA

• FODA is a domain analysis method that focuses on
  the features of the domain's systems.
• A Feature in FODA is an aspect, quality or
  characteristics visible to end user
• FODA feature model contains of 4 elements
• Feature diagram
• Feature definitions
• Composition rules for features
• Rationale for features
• Feature diagram describes the decomposition in
  hierarchal way.
• Sub-features of a feature may be
• Mandatory
• Optional
• Alternative
• Two types of composition rules of features exist
• Require rule
• Mutually exclusive rule

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Example
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FORM

• FORM defines a systematic procedure of
  development of product lines.
• Modeling of domain functionality
• Modeling of alternate implementation of
  identified features
• Construction of a Feature Model
• As a Feature Model characterizes a Domain, it can
  be used to compare the domains.
• The degree of reusability can be guessed, as a
  Feature Model contains the commonalities of
  Product Line
• Feature Model serves the purpose of deciding the
  important matters involved in the development

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FORM Example
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ViPER Feature Model

• Is an extension of the above mentioned
  approaches, features of which are put together
  keeping the requirements of ViPER Feature Editor
• It contains
• Features and Attributes
• Domain Relationships
• Dependencies
• Affect-Relationship
• Feature Sets, Feature Model

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Feature

• A Feature is
• An aspect, quality or characteristic
• It has
• name
• description
• attributes

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Feature Relationship

• Could be
• Domain Relationship
• Dependency Relationship
• Affect Relationship

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Domain Relationship

• Could be
• Specialization
• Composition
• mandatory
• optional
• Or
• mandatory
• optional
• Alternative
• mandatory
• optional

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Dependency Relationship

• Could be
• Require
• feature A requires feature B
• uni-directional
• Exclude
• feature A exclude feature B
• bi-directional

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Affect Relationship

• Is between the Attributes of the Features
• An attribute can effect / change the value of
  another attribute

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Model

• Acts as a container
• Contains
• All the Features
• Feature Sets
• Relationships

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MetaModel for ViPER
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Feature Editor

• Main task was to implement a Feature Editor in
  ViPER platform, through which feature diagrams
  can be made.
• This is done using EMF, GEF and Eclipse.
• So far, only a UML2Editor has been implemented in
  ViPER with possibility to add different UML2
  diagram categories as plug-ins.
• For this purpose, the base implementations should
  be extended

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EMF

• EMF consists of following fundamental blocks
• EMF - The core EMF framework includes a (meta)
  meta model (Ecore) for describing models and
  runtime support for the models
• EMF.Edit - The EMF.Edit framework includes
  generic reusable classes for building
  (non-graphical) editors for EMF models. It
  includes
• content and label provider classes
• a command framework
• EMF.Codegen - The EMF code generation facility is
  capable of generating everything needed to build
  a complete (non-graphical) editor for an EMF
  model. It includes a GUI from which generation
  options can be specified, and generators can be
  invoked.

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GEF

• The Graphical Editing Framework (GEF) allows
  developers to create a rich graphical editor from
  an existing application model.
• GEF consists of 2 plug-ins.
• The org.eclipse.draw2d plug-in provides a layout
  and rendering toolkit for displaying graphics.
• The developer can then take advantage of the many
  common operations provided by org.eclipse.gef
  and/or extend them for the specific domain.
• GEF employs a model-view-controller architecture.
• GEF is completely application neutral and
  provides the groundwork to build almost any
  application.

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Draw2D

• Features of Draw2d
• Efficient layout and rendering support
• Various figure and layout implementations
• Borders
• Cursors and tooltip support
• Connection anchoring, routing, and decorating
• Multiple, transparent layers
• Flexible coordinate systems
• Overview window
• Printing

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Feature Editor

• EditorPart is a base implementation for all
  workbench editors
• In order to define new Client editors, this class
  should be sub classed
• For ViPER, DiagramEditor class has been
  implemented
• All the editors must either directly sub class
  this class, or sub class ExtensibleDiagramEditor

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Feature Editor

• ExtensibleDiagramEditor class is implemented to
  support different diagram categories under single
  diagram editor. E.g. UML2
• E.g. Use case, Sequence, Composition etc
• Feature editor does not have different kinds of
  diagrams
• Only a single type of diagram is to be made
• It is sub classed directly from DiagramEditor
  class.

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Feature Editor
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Feature Editor Wizards

• To create the feature diagram, feature model and
  feature namespace, the following wizards are
  implemented as well.
• FeatureModellingDiagramCreationWizard
• Creates the Feature diagram and model
• FeatureModellingNamespaceCreationWizard
• Creates the Feature Namespace
• FeatureModellingNamespaceResourceAndNamespaceSelec
  tionWizardPage
• These wizards are used to create a Feature
  diagram and all the related resources.

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FeatureModellingDiagramCreationWizard

• The wizard classes are extended from Wizard class
  provided by Eclipse
• Used to create
• Feature Diagram
• Feature Model

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FeatureModellingNamespaceCreationWizard

• This wizard is used to create the namespace for
  the feature diagram.
• The namespace for feature diagram can either be
• Feature set
• Feature Model

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DEMO
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Current / Future Development

• Editor finishing touches
• Curve for Alternate and Or relationships.
• Icons for Attributes
• Icons for Palate entries
• Diagram layout
• Code cleanup
• Report writing

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• Thank you for your attention.