What Is This XOCL All About

Montages XOCL
quick startup

What is this XOCL all about

XOCL ( is an open source project based on the Eclipse Modeling Framework that aims to bring domain modeling out of the inner circle of IT specialists to business analysts and managers.

XOCL greatly simplifies the usage of standard EMF by encouraging best practices and improving user interface.

This document describes how to install XOCL on your computer and guides you through a live example of its capabilities.

What do you need

In order to run the provided example you need:

A working connection to the internet, to download Java, Eclipse and XOCL frameworks.
The thinktank.ecore file. This provides a business model example.
The Montages.thinktank file. This is a concrete example of a company which is modeled accordingly to the model above. In modeling terms, this is referred to as an instance of the model.

Overview

The rest of the document will guide you through the necessary steps to setup your first XOCL example:

Installing the Java platform.
All of the modeling tools provided are based on the JavaTM platform, which in most cases should be already installed on your computer.
Installing the Eclipse platform.
This will constitute the basis for the whole modeling environment.
Installing the XOCL framework.
Montages XOCL builds a professional, easy to use, modeling framework on top of Eclipse.
Creating an XOCL project by importing the provided model example.
Opening an example that shows how the provided model is used to model a real-case company.

Step by step

Installing the Java Platform[1]

Go to the Java website:

The online tool provided there will check if latest Java version is installed on your machine.
Should this not be the case, follow on-screen instructions to download and install latest Java version.

Installing the Eclipse[2] platform

Go to:

and download the Eclipse Classic ZIP file.
Right-click on the downloaded ZIP file and choose “Extract All…”.
Extract Eclipse to your C: drive[3].
Check “Show extracted files…” and click “Extract”.
Files will be extracted and a file explorer will open showing the extracted files.
Open the eclipse folder and launch the Eclipse IDE by double clicking on it.
Make sure you have the latest version of Eclipse by choosing: “Help > Check for Updates” from the Eclipse main menu.
If any update is available, follow the on-screen instructions to download and install it automatically.

Installing XOCL framework

Choose “Help > Install New Software...” from the Eclipse main menu.

On the Install dialog, click the “Add…” button.

Enter the Montages website URL: and click “OK”.
Check the XOCL bundle and then choose “Next >” button.
Review the list of items being installed and press “Next >” button.
Accept licenses agreements and choose “Finish”.

Ignore warnings for unsigned packages[4]:

Accept the Eclipse certificate:
Finally, restart Eclipse so the desired modifications will take place.

Creating an XOCL project

Start up Eclipse.
The first time it opens, a Welcome screen is shown. Please close it by clicking the close icon in the Welcome tab.
You will be presented with the main Eclipse interface; this is called the Eclipse Workbench.
On the left there is the (currently empty) list of the projects you created.
To create a new project within Eclipse choose “File > New > Other…” from the main menu.
In the New Project Wizard, choose “XOCL > XOCL Project”, then click “Next >” button.
In the next page, enter a project name, make sure you choose to create the project from an existing ecore (ecore files are files that contain a model description), then click “Next >” button.
In the next page, click “Browse File System”, then locate thinktank.ecore file provided as an example model.
Make sure that the check boxes are set as shown in the image below, then click “Finish".
In a while, the provided model will be copied into a new project.
Furthermore, Java code necessary to run the model (as seen below) is automatically generated; four new projects will be added to the Eclipse workbench.
Open the main project with a double click, under the “model” folder the sample model can be found and it can be opened in the editor by double clicking on it.
Inside the editor, open the model root by double clicking on it, a list of tables settings will appear.
These settings are automatically-generated editor settings and can be ignored for now.
The actual model can be found by scrolling at the end of the file.
Opening the project node, you’ll be presented with the actual model.
Please refer to the XOCL tutorial to learn how to create and edit models.

Opening an example

Click on the drop-down arrow next to “Run” icon, then choose “Run Configurations…”.

In the Run configurations dialog, under “Eclipse Application” there will be a run configuration named after your project. Select it then click “Run” button.
A new Eclipse workbench will appear.
Inside this new workbench you will create and edit instances of your models.
To create a new instance of the thinktank example model, just right click on the (empty) test project in the workbench e choose “New > Other…” from the pop-up menu.
In the Wizard dialog, choose “Thinktank Model”, then click “Next >” button.
In the next page, leave default options and click “Finish”.
The newly created model will appear in the editor.
Please refer to the XOCL tutorial to learn how to edit models using Montages table editor.
You can also open the sample instance provided, just choose “File > Open File…” from the main menu and open the provided Montages.thinktank file.
The file will open in the main editor.

Montages AG – / Page 1

[1] Java is open source software provided by Oracle.

[2] Eclipse is open source software provided by the Eclipse Foundation.

[3] Eclipse can be extracted to any folder, is strongly suggested to avoid folders with spaces in their names or that are rooted too deeply in the file system hierarchy.

[4] XOCL bundle is provided without a digital signature, this triggers a warning that can be safely ignored.