Creating J work products

Creating a work product

Work products represent external elements, generated by J MDA components. Typically, these external elements are files, for example, C++ generated sources, production processes, binaries, documentation, and so on. Work products are represented by specific creation icons.

Objecteering MDA Modeler can be used to define new types of work products, and to associate icons, commands and attributes with them.

An association stereotyped “AccessAndProduction” must be modeled towards the metaclass on which these work products can be defined.

Work products can be created by clicking on the icon from a J profile implementation.

Steps:

1. In the explorer, click on the J profile implementation for which you wish to create a new work product.

2. Click on the icon. The "Work product" window then appears.

3. Enter the name of the work product, its label and the other information regarding the help bubble, state bar and bitmap related to the new work product.

4. Confirm by clicking on the "OK" button.

Using a new work product

In Figure 99, the detailed view of the J profile presents the modeling of a work product and its link stereotyped “AccessAndProduction” towards the metaclass on which it can be defined. We are now going to create this link.

Figure 99. Detailed view of the modeling of a work product

To define the “Access and Production” link, carry out the following steps:

1. Open the "Detailed view of MyWorkproduct" diagram.

2. Unmask the "Class" metaclass by dragging and dropping the "Class" metaclass (contained in the "Reference Metamodels/Objecteering UML/Metamodel" package of the "metamodel" model component) from the explorer into the diagram.

3. Create an association from the “MyWorkproduct” work product to the “Class” metaclass.

4. Select the association in the diagram and then go into the “MDA” tab of the auxiliary window, click on the "Value" field for the "Type" property and select “AccessAndProduction”.

After compiling the J MDA component which uses the profile on which the work product is defined, the new work product can be created in the “Auxiliary properties” tab of the auxiliary window (Figure 100).

Figure 100. Using a newly created work product

Updating diagrams

If the “Create/update MDA diagrams automatically” MDAC option is activated and if you use the MDA icons to create MDA elements, all diagrams concerning the work product are automatically created or updated.

Otherwise, the button allows you to force the creation or update of the MDA diagrams.

Toolbar

The icons appearing in the “MDA” tab of the auxiliary window can be used to run the following commands:

Icon	Description
	This icon is used to create/update diagrams, even if the “Create/update MDA diagrams automatically” option is desactivated.
	This icon is used to edit the J code (all operations of the work product are visualized in a single file). See “Editing J code” for further information.
	This icon is used to check that the work product has been correctly modeled.