Starter Guide

This page gives a quick overview of the features of the current version of Reuseware. Before reading, you should Download Reuseware using your Eclipse Update Manager.

The user interface of Reuseware is integrated into the Eclipse platform and works together with modeling editors available in your Eclipse installation. Reuseware provides the following three major features: Fragment Stores, the Fragment Repository View and the Composition Program Editor.

Fragment Stores

Fragment stores are folders in your workspace that contain fragments. You can mark any folder in any kind of project as a fragment store, by selecting the folder and pressing the Activate Fragment Store button in the toolbar.

Fragments that are registered in a store are available for reuse in composition programs. Each fragment has a Unique Fragment Identifier (UFI). This is defined by a base UFI and the position of the fragment in the store. You can define the base UFI when activating a store.

Fragment stores can also contain composition system definitions (*.rex files) that define how the composition interfaces of fragments are derived. How those are defined is described in the Reuse Extension Language reference. Look at the Applications for ready made composition systems (rex files) you can use.

Fragment Repository View

The fragment repository view lets you browse and reuse fragment.

The fragment repository view lets you inspect which fragments are available in your system. Open the view in Eclipse through Window > Show Views > Other... > Reuseware > Fragment Repository.

From the view you can 1) directly open a fragment by double-clicking it 2) select fragments you want to reuse in a composition program by pressing the + button.

Composition Program Editor

To create a new composition program select New > Others... > Reuseware > Composition Program. The composition program will open in a graphical editor. A composition program consists of the following concepts.

Note 1: you can open fragments directly from a composition program by double-click.

Note 2: yellow and red elements in a composition program indicate warnings and errors. Double-click such an element to get a more detailed message.

Fragment Instances

Create a instance of a fragment you like to reuse by selecting it in the Fragment Repository View and pressing the + button when the editor is opened. The fragment instance is displayed as a box with circles attached. The circles (called Ports) represent the fragment's composition interface.

At least one of the fragment instances has to be set as target. This means that the composition will extend this fragment with others. In the properties of a target fragment, one can define the UFI of the result (targetUFI). A fragment can be set as target in the properties or by right-clicking and selecting Set as Target. Target fragments are displayed in grey.

Composition Links

Use composition links to connect Ports (the circles at the fragment instances) to describe compositions. Only ports of matching type can be linked. If the composition link turns red, the linking is not possible; if it turns black, everything is fine. Some links turn into arrows describing a direction of composition. This again depends on the type of ports you are linking. The direction indicates that one fragment is extended with another. The details about this are out of scope of this guide. Stick to the following rules-of-thumb:

• A fragment that was marked as target (grey) should only have incoming links.
• If you define multiple composition links between two fragments, all directed links should point into the same direction.