A Framework for Projectional Multi-variant Model Editors

Model-driven software product line engineering (MDSPLE) combines the productivity gains achieved by model-driven software engineering and software product line engineering. In MDSPLE, multi-variant models are created in domain engineering which are configured into single-variant models that are adapted further (if required) in application engineering. Since multi-variant models are inherently complex, tools are urgently needed which provide specific support for editing multi-variant models. In this paper, we present a framework for projectional multi-variant editors which do not hide complexity but make it manageable by a user-friendly representation. At all times, a domain engineer is aware of editing a multi-variant model which is necessary to assess the impact of changes on all model variants. Projectional multi-variant editors provide a novel approach to representing variability information which is displayed non-intrusively and supports a clear separation of the product space (the domain model) from the variant space (variability annotations). Furthermore, the domain engineer may employ a projectional multi-variant editor to adapt the representation of the multi-variant domain model in a flexible way, according to the current focus of interest.