Archi extensibilit

Started by wombach, April 14, 2017, 16:00:57 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

wombach

Hi,

I am new to this forum, thus please bare with me.

We are trying to understand if and if so how the archi tool could be extended with additional model types. There are obviously eclipse plugins for UML and BPMN. An obvious thought is to re-use these and get them connected in the archi tool.

Is this something which is completely against your mind set or is that something where there is simply no funding for?

best
Andreas

Phil Beauvoir

Hi, even though Archi is based on Eclipse it is not designed to connect to other Eclipse based plugins like the ones you mention. Those tools require the whole of the Eclipse framework IDE to act as the host, and this would require a large investment of time to do this. This is not something that I personally want to do. My aim is to keep Archi as simple as possible!

Phil
If you value and use Archi, please consider making a donation!
Ask your ArchiMate related questions to the ArchiMate Community's Discussion Board.

wombach

Hi,

thanks for the fast response. We are currently checking the feasibility with making a little plugin to connect to a model repository and adding own UI elements to the UI.

We are currently experiencing limitations in the expressiveness of Archimate  on representing process models and the representation of data structures. From my point of view the logical steps would be to use model languages like UML and BPMN to use to extend Archimate and to add links between the different models to connect them. I see that commercial tools sometimes offer this functionality.

Do you think it is desirable to extend Archimate with other models at the first place?
If so, do you think that this is feasible to do by extending Archi?
If so, what could be a suitable mechanism to do so?

Thanks in advance for your opinion.

-Andreas

Phil Beauvoir

You asking about two things - one practical and one technical. Using UML/BPMN as an additional level of modelling with ArchiMate models is of course up to the user, and I can't comment on that. As for extending Archi to support those types pf models is probably not really feasible. I suppose one could create some kind of connection between Archi and another tool. Given that BPMN and UML exist as Eclipse plugins, there's not point in re-inventing the wheel, but as I said Archi is a standalone RCP app not a plugin.
If you value and use Archi, please consider making a donation!
Ask your ArchiMate related questions to the ArchiMate Community's Discussion Board.