Basic Extensibility Concepts

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Contents

This chapter is organized as follows:

• Rational Rose Extensibility
• The REI Model and Rose Extensibility
• Rose Scripting
• Rose Automation
• Rose Add-In Manager
• Default Properties and Property Sets
• Rose Extensibility Type Libraries

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Rational Rose Extensibility

Rational Rose provides several ways for you to extend and customize its capabilities to meet your specific software development needs. You can:

• Customize Rose menus.
• Automate manual Rose functions with Rose Scripts (for example, diagram and class creation, model updates, and document generation).
• Execute Rose functions from within another application by using the Rose Automation object (RoseApp).
• Access Rose classes, properties, and methods right within your software development environment by including the Rose Extensibility Type Library in your environment.
• Activate Rose add-ins using the Add-In Manager.

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The REI Model and Rose Extensibility

The purpose of Rose is to enable component-based software development. As you would expect, the Rose application is itself component based, and is defined in the Rose Extensibility Interface (REI) Model.

The REI Model is essentially a metamodel of a Rose model, exposing the packages, classes, properties, and methods that define and control the Rose application and all of its functions.

Figure 1 shows the logical packages that comprise the Rose Extensibility Interface Model. Refer to the online Help for details on the classes contained in each package, and the properties and methods defined for each class.

Figure 1 Rose Extensibility Model -- Logical View

You communicate with the Rose Extensibility Interface through Rose Scripts or through Rose Automation. In either case, you will use the REI calls defined in the Rose Extensibility Model and described in the online Help.

Figure 2 shows the components of Rose and the Rose Extensibility Interface, and illustrates the relationships between them. These components are:

• Rose Application

  The Rose Extensibility objects that interface to Rose's application functionality.

• Rose Extensibility Interface

  This is the common set of interfaces used by Rose Script and Rose Automation to access Rose.

• Rose Script

  The set of Rose Script objects that allow Rose Scripts to automate Rose functionality.

• Rose Automation

  The set of Rose Automation objects that allow Rose to function as an OLE automation controller or server.

• Diagrams

  The Rose Extensibility objects that interface to Rose's diagrams and views.

• Model Elements

  The Rose Extensibility objects that interface to Rose's model elements.

Figure 2 Rose Application and Extensibility Components

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Rose Scripting

The Rose Scripting language is an extended version of the Summit BasicScript language. The Rose extensions allow you to automate Rose-specific functions and, in some cases, perform functions that are not available through the Rose user interface.

The Rose Script Editor runs in the Rose environment and provides access to the scripting environment. Start the script editor by clicking either Tools > New Script or Tools > Open Script.

Rose provides a set of sample scripts that you can use as a base from which to create your own scripts.

• Check the Scripts folder in your Rose installation directory for the complete list of available scripts.
• Use the Rose Script Editor (click Tools > Open Script) to view a sample script. If you want to edit the script, click File > Save Script As to create a copy for your own use, leaving the sample intact.

Use the online BasicScript and Rose Script Language References for complete script language information.

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Rose Automation

Rose Automation allows you to integrate other applications with Rose in two ways:

• Using Rose as an automation controller, you can call an OLE automation object from within a Rose script. For example, a Rose script can use OLE automation to execute functions in applications such as Word and Visual Basic.
• Using Rose as an automation server, you can call its OLE automation object from within other OLE-compliant applications.

Rose Automation is accessible to automation controller environments, such as Visual Basic, EXCEL, Summit BasicScript, Softbridge Basic Language, C, C++, and others.

Note: You may need to adapt the syntax listed for each REI property and method to your particular programming language. If the listed syntax does not meet your needs, consult your programming environment's Help, programming language books, and outside documentation on the subject.

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Rose Add-In Manager

The Rose Add-In Manager provides you with the facilities required to install extensions you create as add-in components in the Rose environment.

In the extensibility environment, you can manipulate add-ins using calls to the RoseAddInManager object.

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Default Properties and Property Sets

Each Rose model has its own default properties. These default properties are defined in a property file and are grouped into sets based on:

• Type of model element

  Class, component, relation, attributes, operations, and so on; the objects that make up the model.

• Tool

  Corresponds to a tab in the property specification. A tool can be a programming language tool, such as Java or C++; a database tool, such as Oracle8; a user-defined add-in to Rose; or some other tool.

• Properties

  The actual properties and property values defined in the set; these must be appropriate to the model element and tool for which they are being defined.

Note: You can define multiple sets of default properties for the same tool and model element. For example, you might want one set of properties for a class with a stereotype of Actor and a different set of properties for a class with a stereotype of Interface. Both of these sets are still considered default properties in that they are predefined for the model. Defining multiple sets saves you work by minimizing the need to override properties later.

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Rose Extensibility Type Libraries

Loading a type library for Rose automation allows you to use Rose class names to access the Rose Extensibility Interface from your programming environment.

For example, if you are working in Visual Basic, instead of using the Basic object type Object, you can use the name of the actual Rose class. You can also check the syntax of the properties and methods at compile time (early binding) instead of when the code is executed (late binding).

If you are working in Visual C, you can import RationalRose.tlb into an MFC project. This generates ColeDispatchDriver subclasses for each REI class, and methods allowing access to REI properties and methods.

Important: When you specify a Rose class name in an automation environment, you must add the prefix Rose to the class name, unless the class name itself contains the word Rose already. (For example, the Rose class, RoseItem, does not require a prefix.) This prefix prevents class name conflicts across applications.

For example, in Rose Script, the syntax for declaring a Category variable is:

Dim theCategory As Category

In Rose Automation, the syntax for declaring a Category variable is:

Dim theCategory As RoseCategory

For details on using type libraries in any automation environment, refer to the documentation for your particular programming environment.