Generation of visual language-oriented design environments

Abstract

We review some results in the area of using meta techniques to generate language-oriented programming environments. We focus on environments for visual languages having a two-dimensional syntax based on attribute grammars and graphical constraints. We introduce edit-semantic attributes, a new class of attributes which control the user interaction and graphic presentation. We present LOGGIE, a prototype tool implementing some of the meta techniques discussed. The tool generates interactive language-oriented graphical editors. A number of applications have been generated and are presented, e.g. graphical environments for CCS, G-LOTOS and SDL.