Free ActionScript Code Generation: VASGen 0.2 Release

I finally got a new rev up of VASGen, my Violet UML ActionScript 3 Generator.

It is built against Alexandre de Pellegrin's enhanced version of Violet UML, which is designed to run either standalone, as an Eclipse plug-in, or via JNLP ("Java Web Start"). This version of Violet also has a much glossier look and feel, which make it particularly pleasant to use (thanks, Alexandre!)

     

The main functional enhancement to VASGen is in the area of package support. This version supports placing classes and interfaces (and nested packages) inside of packages, using the Violet modeling tool. When code is generated, the proper folders and qualified type names will be used.

If you don't want to package all of your types, or you are just sketching around inside what will end up one package, you can specify a default package by just dropping a package icon anywhere in the diagram and marking the name of it with a '+' (e.g., "+foobar").

I've tossed in a couple of bug fixes too. Details and the download are here.

If you uncover problems, I would love to hear about them and hopefully fix them.

ActionScript 3 Code Generator Update

After I announced my quick Violet UML ActionScript3 code-gen integration last week, David Holroyd, author of the metaas ActionScript DOM library I used, updated his library to fix a couple of tiny bugs.

I've updated my code to use his latest, with the result that

• internal and protected members have full support now
• default visibility is now avoided in favor of internal and
• package declarations in interfaces are written out to disk properly.

Check out the project page for details and downloads.

Free ActionScript3 Code Generation from Violet UML

At IndustryNext, we are in the interesting position of building cutting-edge projects, with cutting-edge tech for somewhat more established companies than your typical web 2.0 startup.

Part of keeping the speed and quality high is leveraging tools for code analysis and code generation to help keep a handle on dynamic language development. (E.g. I wouldn't ban the use of eval in Ruby, but I'd sure as heck want a tool that can tell me where in the codebase it's being used, and why.) In some cases, we're pioneering these methods.

Generating consistent code from models is a step in this direction. (In JavaScript, just guaranteeing consistent variable names can save no small amount of debugging.)

In order to make it easier to play with object models in ActionScript 3, I spent a little time integrating Cay Horstmann's lightweight Violet UML modeling tool with David Holroyd's metaas library for manipulating ActionScript.

The result is VASGen (Violet UML ActionScript 3 Generator) 0.1, an initial release of a free code generation tool that supports generating classes, interfaces, field, properties, methods, and various types of relationships from Violet's Class Diagram editor.

The project page includes details on what works and what doesn't in this release. If you build applications in AS3 and you like UML models, please give it a try and let me know what you think.