Metamodel Documentation Update

Generating HTML documentation from a metamodel created with Rational Rose Enterprise Edition requires some doing, especially if we want all broswers to show them easily.

1) Publish in HTML from Rose

First: USE A 1024x768 SCREEN RESOLUTION FOR ROSE (otherwise, the fonts will be ugly).

From Rose, open the metamodel (.mdl file) and select Tools --> Web Publisher... The following interface will be shown. Use this configuration and press Publish.

img/RoseWebpublisher.png

This will generate a folder with the HTML documentation (and many subfolders). However, most browsers will not be able to show this documentation, because the default index.html makes use of a Java applet that is seen as unsecured by most browsers. There is a workaround, but it is difficult to implement and does not always work (see URNMetaModel#WARNING).

2) Install and Run Home-Made Java Index Generator

To solve the above problem, I have created a small Java program (with two classes) that creates a static HTML index from a structure of Rose Web Publisher content (.cnt) files. I have chosen to show only packages and diagrams. The rest of the information can be obtained by clicking on the diagrams (packages, classes and associations) and the links on the various other details brought up on the web pages.

First, download and unzip GenerateIndexForRose.zip. This file contains two Java classes with their source code, and one HTML file.

Run the Generate program to produce a menu.html file. Use the content.cnt file from the root directory of the metamodel published by Rose as a parameter. Then, move this menu file to the Rose folder. Finally, rename the original index.html file (in case you want it to be available to people who can actually run the Rose Java applet), and copy the provided newindex.html file into the folder as the new index.html file. For example:

java Generate "D:\Documents\work\jucmnav\URNMetamodelHTML\contents.cnt" > menu.html
move menu.html D:\Documents\work\jucmnav\URNMetamodelHTML
move  D:\Documents\work\jucmnav\URNMetamodelHTML\index.html  D:\Documents\work\jucmnav\URNMetamodelHTML\oldindex.html
copy newindex.html D:\Documents\work\jucmnav\URNMetamodelHTML\index.html

This new index.html uses frames to include the previous menu.html and another frame (labelled contents_frame by Rose Web Publisher) for content visualization. You may want to test the index, and adjust the width of the menu frame if not wide enough. By default, it is:

<frameset COLS="250,*">

3) Deployment

Zip this folder and upload it on the Web (to be accessed by Wiki). Update the Wiki to create links to the two index files. For example, see what is on URNMetaModel

   * In [%ATTACHURL%/URN_27.mdl][Rational Rose (.mdl)](/JUCMNAV/projetseg-update/wiki/%ATTACHURL%/URN_27.mdl][Rational-Rose-(.mdl)) format
   * [http://www.site.uottawa.ca/~damyot/urn/URNMetamodelHTML/index.html][Documentation](http://www.site.uottawa.ca/~damyot/urn/URNMetamodelHTML/index.html][Documentation) in HTML (for all browsers)
   * [http://www.site.uottawa.ca/~damyot/urn/URNMetamodelHTML/oldindex.html][Documentation](http://www.site.uottawa.ca/~damyot/urn/URNMetamodelHTML/oldindex.html][Documentation) in HTML (original applet-based Rose index, see <a href ="#WARNING">WARNING</a>)
   * All documentation as a [http://www.site.uottawa.ca/~damyot/urn/URNMetamodelHTML.zip][ZIP file](http://www.site.uottawa.ca/~damyot/urn/URNMetamodelHTML.zip][ZIP file)

That's it!

-- Main.DanielAmyot - 03 Aug 2014