Constructing Flow-Based Editors with a Model-View-Shape Architecture

Abstract

During the software design phase, different graphics applications such as flowcharts or data-flow diagrams may be used to depict the software structures and their contents. Although the functions provided by these graphics applications are different, the drawing facilities may be similar and the diagrams produced, in general, are flow-based. This paper presents a model-view-controller architecture, to the construction of a general flow-based editor. On the basis of the model-view shape architecture, we used Visual C++ to develop a sample application, called the flow-based program editor, and the associated class hierarchy on the Windows environment. The flow-based program editor is intended to provide a slow-based editing environment for the user to visualize and construct a program with the control-flow graph(s). To demonstrate the practicability of the architecture, we also constructed another programming tool, called the syntax-directed text editor, by extending the class hierarchy of the flow-based program editor.