New SPLC Paper

Modular Development of Graphical Editor Product Lines

Authors: Thomas Kühn, Kevin Ivo Kassin, Walter Cazzola, and Uwe Aßmann

Published in: 22nd International Systems and Software Product Line Conference (SPLC'18)

Software Product Lines (SPLs) have a long tradition and aim at reducing development costs by increasing reuse. They have been successfully applied to develop families of languages, ultimately establishing the field of Language Product Lines (LPLs). Currently, LPLs facilitate a family of textual languages by defining an SPL of compilers/interpreters. In contrast, this work aims at supporting families of graphical languages by defining an SPL of graphical editors, whereas each language variant is supported by a corresponding product of a Graphical Editor Product Line (GEPL).
Thus far, there exists no modular approach for the development of GEPLs for families of visual languages.
To remedy this, this paper introduces a feature-oriented development approach for GEPLs that ensures modularity, maintainability, and extensibility of the resulting product line. To showcase the suitability and applicability of our approach, we developed a modular GEPL for the family of role-based modeling languages, a feature rich family of conceptual modeling languages. Finally, we illustrate its extensibility by adding a complex language feature.