2.3 Creating and customizing modeling languages with MetaEdit+

MetaEdit+ is a metaCASE tool. That is, it is a CASE tool that can be extensively modified — customized — to be used with different modeling languages, their concepts, graphical representations, operations, connections to other languages, code and documentation generation. All these features are available in the MetaEdit+ Workbench; many are also available in the standard CASE version. In both cases, you must belong to the group of those assigned the right to metamodel, specified by your system administrator.

MetaEdit+ provides the following ways to modify or extend your modeling environment:

Modeling languages

MetaEdit+ is shipped with an extensive set of pre-defined languages, but still its main power lies in providing organizations with the possibility to create their own modeling languages. The configuration capabilities of MetaEdit+ allow you to define languages, operations and connections to other languages. To do this, you need to have the Workbench version of MetaEdit+ (with the CASE version the system administrator can remove language definitions, but nobody can modify or add them).

Graphical representations

As different modeling languages use different notations and symbols, MetaEdit+ allows you to change and modify graphical representations, whether the languages use graphs that are diagrams, matrices, or tables. Users with metamodeling rights can design and modify graphical representations with the Symbol Editor; existing representations can be modified with the CASE version of MetaEdit+.

Dialogs

You can modify the contents and appearance of property dialogs used when MetaEdit+ is used as a CASE tool. As with graphical representations, users with metamodeling rights can modify dialogs with the CASE version of MetaEdit+.

Code and documentation generation

Generator customization and the use of user-defined generators are possible with MetaEdit+ Generator Editor. With this tool you can choose which parts of your design data you want to have written out, in which format and to which destination (file or output window).