About the Demo

There are several purposes of this demo
  1. To provide an example of how to write a plugin toolbutton into the EcoSpace designer and access model information at design time. (HtmlReportTool.cs)
  2. The HtmlReportTool extracts model information and dumps it in a HTML-file. It may serve as a starting point for creating your own custom reports from the model. (HtmlReportTool.cs)
  3. Replace the Generate Schema tool with a tool that combines Validate Model and Generate Schema. (ValidateAndgenerate.cs)
  4. Show how to amend the model validation engine. The example shows how to detect certain patterns in OCL strings - you can easily use the same basic pattern to scan for inappropriate names, too long/short identifiers or other coding rules you may chose to report on. (OclScannerValidator.cs)
  5. Show how OCL on forms can be validated (ValidateForms.cs)
  6. Control the amount of logging produced at design time. Since the model layer is a full blown ECO application, don't be surprised over the amount of OCL statements executed when code is generated!

In all cases you need to study the code in order to take advantage of it.

Setup Information

When opening the project for the first time:
  1. Compile EcoSpaceDesignerPlugins.bdsproj to get EcoSpaceDesignerPlugins.dll
  2. Make the DLL known to the IDE by adding the following information into the registry: 
    [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Borland\BDS\<<version>>\Known IDE Assemblies]
"<<full path to directory containing the dll>>\\EcoSpaceDesignerPlugins.dll"="Eco EcoSpaceDesignerPlugins Example"
    A few things worth noting:

    <<version>> - should be replaced with the version of your IDE.

    <<full path to directory containing the EcoSpaceDesignerPlugins.dll>> - should be replaced with the absolute path to the DLL. 

  3. Restart the IDE.
  4. Create a new ECO Application. You should have new buttons on the lower toolbar in the EcoSpaceDesigner.
  • Note: If you have installed the DLL as described above, you need to close the IDE, uninstall the DLL and restart the IDE in order to recompile the DLL.