A generative framework for development of CRUD-based Linux desktop applications

CRUD applications, i.e. applications focused on creating, reading, updating and deleting data records, have always been commonly used. Nonetheless, to the authors´ knowledge there is no framework or tool targeting this class of applications in the Gnome desktop environment (using GTK+ widget toolkit). This paper describes a framework based on the model-driven development paradigm for generating CRUD desktop applications with a hierarchic layout and bindings between user interface elements from models expressed in YAML and in domain-specific languages embedded in Vala or Genie. It demonstrates a usability of the recent modern programming language - Vala - and also shows how to extend a functionality of its compiler.