Concepts and realization of a diagram editor generator based on hypergraph transformation

Diagram editors which are tailored to a specific diagram language typically support either syntax-directed editing or free-hand editing, i.e., the user is either restricted to a collection of predefined editing operations, or he is not restricted at all, but misses the convenience of such complex editing operations. This paper describes DIAGEN, a rapid prototyping tool for creating diagram editors which support both modes in order to get their combined advantages. Created editors use hypergraphs as an internal diagram model and hypergraph parsers for syntactic analysis whereas syntax-directed editing is realized by programmed hypergraph transformation of these internal hypergraphs. This approach has proven to be powerful and general in the sense that it supports quick prototyping of diagram editors and does not restrict the class of diagram languages which it can be applied to.