Augmenting graphical modeling workbenches with semantic-aware interactive features
Théo Giraudet, Arnaud Blouin, Benoît Combemale, Mélanie Bats, Pierre-Charles David · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · 2025
Domain-Specific Modeling Languages (DSMLs) usually come with a dedicated integrated environment called a modeling workbench. In the context of graphical DSMLs, such environments provide modelers with dedicated interactive features that help them perform navigation and editing tasks. Many of these features are generic and can be used by graphical DSMLs without any specialization ( e.g., a physical zoom). Others require specializations in accordance with the involved DSML. For instance, a semantic zoom requires specifying which elements of the model must be graphically modified at the different zoom levels. However, current language workbenches do not propose facilities to help language designers in developing such semantic-aware features for their graphical modeling workbenches. So language designers must develop these features by hand, which is a complex and time-consuming task. This paper proposes a novel approach to help language designers in this task. In addition to existing DSML concerns, such as the syntaxes, we propose to capture the interactive features of the targeted modeling workbench in the form of DSML pragmatics. We propose an implementation of our proposal within one industrial language workbench, Sirius Web. We evaluate our proposal through two representative use cases that support discussion of the feasibility of the proposal. We also evaluate its scalability. The evaluation brings forward challenges the community has to consider while developing highly interactive modeling workbenches.