Not everyone uses modeling tools and the awesome work one can do with these tools must be conveyed to the outside world, for instance, in the form of documents. The M2Doc technology enables the generation of Office Open XML documents from Ecore models and Sirius representations. The overall approach M2Doc implements consists in creating templates in the OOX format where static text authoring benefit from the WYSIWYG capabilities of the usual tools (e.g. Microsoft Word, Libre Office, Open Office). Dynamic parts are inserted using a dedicated vocabulary of OOX fields code. Fields are mainly used to insert page numbers, references, etc. M2Doc makes use them to describe documentation generation directives. This allows a total separation between the document and the M2Doc directives. The template language makes an extensive use of the Acceleo Query Language which provides a full fledged, extensible model query language and engine. In this talk, I will present the M2Doc technology and talk about the way it is integrated with Sirius.

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Document Generation With
M2Doc
Romain Guider

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WHY SHOULD I GENERATE DOC
FROM MY MODELS?
At some point, you will
need to reach people
who are not using your
modeling workbench

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Use Case 1: Data Exchange Standard
Data Exchange Standard
workbench
Message
validator
Standard developper
Payroll employee/
Payroll software developper
Standard
documentaton
Payroll
software
Payroll
data

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Use Case 2 : Enterprise Informaton System
modeling
Enterprise Informaton
System modeling workbench
Specificaton Doc Data Dictonary
Database
Business
Analyst
Applicaton
developper
Database
Administrator

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HOW DO I GENERATE DOCS FROM
MY MODELS?
Let’s mix some open XML template and our models.

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Adopt a template based approach
M2Doc
template model
document

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What’s in a template?
• Regular open XML
• Fields to insert generaton directves :
Regularcontent
Field

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What’s in a template?
• Regular open XML
• Fields to insert generaton directves :
M2Docprefix
Regularcontent
Field

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What’s in a template?
• Regular open XML
• Fields to insert generaton directves :
M2Docprefix
AQLexpression
Regularcontent
Field

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How is it processed?
• Regular open XML : reproduced as is
• Fields : replaced by the result of their
evaluaton
Resultofthe
Fieldevaluaton
Regularcontent

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How is it processed?
• Regular open XML : reproduced as is
• Fields : replaced by the result of their
evaluaton
Resultofthe
Fieldevaluaton
Regularcontent
Notethestyle!

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Can you Repeate please?
Field’scode
Closingtag

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Can you Repeate please?
Field’scode
Iteratonvar
Closingtag

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Can you Repeate please?
Field’scode
Iteratonvar
Iteratonexpr
Closingtag

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What else?
Field’scode

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What else?
Field’scode
expression

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What else?
Field’scode
expression
Closingtag

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And, Sirius representatons!
Field’scode

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And, Sirius representatons!
Field’scode
Descripton
specificaton

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And, Sirius representatons!
Field’scode
Descripton
specificaton
Targetobject

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And, Sirius representatons!
Field’scode
Descripton
specificaton
Targetobject
Imagesize
specificaton

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A word about services
{m:for talk |conf->tracks.talks->select(t|
t.name.contains(‘Sirius’))}
– {m:talk.name}
{m:endfor}
{m:for talk|conf->siriusTalks()}
- {m:talk.name}
{m:endfor}

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Bring your own services
• Develop AQL services in POJO
• Contribute them through an extension point
• Document them for your end user
• Use the services in your templates

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Let’s see what we can do so far!
Demo!

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M2Doc has an open architecture
M2Doc
EMFPOI
M2Doc.UI :
m2doc.ui
m2doc.ui.edit
m2doc.ui.editor
diagramProviders services
treeProviders
Sirius
Integraton
AQL
tableProviders
database
org.obeonetwork.database
org.obeonetwork.database.edit
org.obeonetwork.database.design
org.obeonetwork.database.m2doc

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What’s coming next?
• Currently cooking :
– Inserton of Sirius tables
– Management of user content
in generated docs
• Next steps :
– Template indentaton control
– Unified tables
– Better user experience
• Wizard for template creaton,
• Dialog for template
configuraton,
• etc

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M2Doc
Contributions
CASID/DGSIC
(Ministère de la
defense)

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Where’s the code?
https://github.com/ObeoNetwork/M2Doc/

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