A light-weight annotation-based solution to design Domain Specific Graphical Modeling Languages

DSML (Domain Specific Modeling Languages) are an alternative to general purpose modeling languages (e.g. UML or SysML) for describing models with concepts and relations specific to a domain. DSML design is often based on Ecore meta-models, which follow the class-relation paradigm and also require defining a concrete syntax which can be either graphical or textual. In this demo, we focus on graphical concrete syntax, and we introduce an approach and a tool (Diagraph) to assist the design of a graphical DSML. The main points are: non-intrusive annotations of the meta-model to identify nodes, edges, nesting structures and other graphical information; immediate validation of meta-models by immediate generation of an EMF-GMF instance editor supporting multi-diagramming. Diagraph plays the role of an extension to Ecore, and is based on a pattern recognition principle in order to infer most of the concrete syntax.