Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Alan Cameron Wills

Stephen J Cook

Gareth Alun Jones

Stuart John Harding Kent

Jochen Seemann

Gareth A Jones

Stuart J H Kent

A designer tool that facilitates design of an object model. The tool takes as input a computer-readable representation of a graph of objects (e.g., classes), and creates automatically one or more diagrams that depict these classes as editable trees showing their relationships and properties. These graphs naturally have a tree-like structure which is exploited by the approach. The design tool system includes a layout component that receives as input one or more of the graphs, and converts the one or more graphs into the editable treelike structure. The system further comprises a presentation component that presents the editable treelike structure as a treelike structure diagram, and facilitates user interaction therewith. The tool can be used for opening, editing and saving existing object model files or to create new ones.

Object model tree diagram

Source code of a graphical designer application may be generated from a definition of graphical elements that can be employed to develop graphical models using the graphical designer application, a definition of one or more object types that can be represented in graphical models developed using the graphical designer application, and a definition of a mapping between the one or more object types and the graphical elements. One or more of these definitions may be stored within a file formatted in accordance with a markup language such as SGML or XML. The graphical designer application may be customized and extended by modifying one or more of the definitions and regenerating the source code and/or by modifying the source code itself. One or more of the definitions may be generated based on a graphical designer template corresponding to a particular model domain.

Generating a graphical designer application for developing graphical models

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Newmarket, United Kingdom

Alan Cameron Wills