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International Conference on Theory and Application of Diagrams

Diagrams 2002: Diagrammatic Representation and Inference pp 305–319Cite as

On the Definition of Visual Languages and Their Editors

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 2317))

Abstract

Different diagrammatic languages are concrete variants of a core metamodel which specifies the way in which to express relations, and which is the basis for a semantic interpretation. In this paper, we identify families of diagrammatic languages exploiting the notion of metamodel as introduced in UML, i.e. through an abstract syntax, given as a class diagram, and a set of constraints in a logical language. The abstract syntax constrains the types of expressable relations and the types and multiplicities of the participating entities. The constraints express contextual and global properties of the relations and their participants. We propose a set of metamodels describing common types of diagrammatic languages. The advantages of this proposal are manifold: the analysis of constraints in the metamodel can be used to assess the adequacy of a type of language to a domain semantics and it is possible to check whether a concrete notation or syntax complies with the metamodel or introduces unforeseen constraints. Finally, we discuss how this characterisation allows the definition of flexible editors for concrete diagrammatic languages, where a specific editor results from the specialisation of some high-level construction primitives for the relevant family of languages.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Informazione, Università di Roma, La Sapienza, Italy

    Paolo Bottoni

  2. Dipartimento di Matematica ed Informatica, Università di Salerno, Italy

    Gennaro Costagliola

Authors
  1. Paolo Bottoni
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  2. Gennaro Costagliola
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of California, 93106, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    Mary Hegarty

  2. School of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Monash University, Clayton Campus, Wellington Road, 3800, Victoria, Australia

    Bernd Meyer

  3. Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Auburn University, 107 Dunstan Hall, 36849, Auburn, AL, USA

    N. Hari Narayanan

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© 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Bottoni, P., Costagliola, G. (2002). On the Definition of Visual Languages and Their Editors. In: Hegarty, M., Meyer, B., Narayanan, N.H. (eds) Diagrammatic Representation and Inference. Diagrams 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 2317. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-46037-3_29

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-46037-3_29

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-43561-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-46037-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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