Friday, June 12, 2009
GMF is still awful
Today we had a GMF workshop at a customer (I was a participant, not the presenter). And I have to say I am still seriously underwhelmed by GMF ... I hadn't looked at it for a year or so. It is still basically unusable: awful editors, bad diagnostics and a lot of duplication.Obviously, having a tool for defining graphical editors is a good thing. However, I think GMF really fails at delivering. It is too low level, and too brittle.
I wonder when somebody will build a decent (textual) language that supports simple creation of (GMF-based) graphical editors. York's Epsilon Eugenia is a step in the right direction. permalink
Comments:
<< Home
... a lot of duplication.
This is the main reason why I have developed GenGMF during my diploma thesis. The new version 2.0 supports wizards for easy creation of graphical editors.
This is the main reason why I have developed GenGMF during my diploma thesis. The new version 2.0 supports wizards for easy creation of graphical editors.
Imagine making the same observation in the form of a positive statement: GMF, there's still plenty of room for improvement.
How will this situation change do you think? Wait for someone to improve GMF? Wait for someone to come up with something better than GMF? Do something other than wait?
How will this situation change do you think? Wait for someone to improve GMF? Wait for someone to come up with something better than GMF? Do something other than wait?
hi markus,
therefore i'm currently developing together with robert and holger a tool named tmf_graph. It's an tmf grammar, which enriches the xtext grammar with graphical informations.
We implement this as tmf generator fragments, to speed up the generating a graphical editors, without the need to handle wizards.
Target platforms are eugenia or direct draw2d based java classes.
Stay tuned.
therefore i'm currently developing together with robert and holger a tool named tmf_graph. It's an tmf grammar, which enriches the xtext grammar with graphical informations.
We implement this as tmf generator fragments, to speed up the generating a graphical editors, without the need to handle wizards.
Target platforms are eugenia or direct draw2d based java classes.
Stay tuned.
There are so many different efforts to improve GMF (mainly tooling) going on independently now:
- Eugenia
- GMF tools http://code.google.com/p/gmftools/
-GenGMF mentioned here
- MosKitt GMF extensions (see http://www.slideshare.net/gmerin/extending-gmf-presentation)
- tmf_graph mentioned below
Perhaps there are others, and maybe some by-products of other eclipse projects re-using GMF.
Would it not be in the interests of Eclipse GMF to try and get some sort of co-ordination among these efforts, or would it be too much like herding cats?
Post a Comment
- Eugenia
- GMF tools http://code.google.com/p/gmftools/
-GenGMF mentioned here
- MosKitt GMF extensions (see http://www.slideshare.net/gmerin/extending-gmf-presentation)
- tmf_graph mentioned below
Perhaps there are others, and maybe some by-products of other eclipse projects re-using GMF.
Would it not be in the interests of Eclipse GMF to try and get some sort of co-ordination among these efforts, or would it be too much like herding cats?
<< Home