Introduction

Generation of a MexADL-based software architecture for web applications. You can either generate an architecture based on the traditional Model View Controller (MVC) pattern, or try to identify clusters within your existing code.

The architecture is composed both by a MexADL architecture document and a SVG file depicting the classification of system components.

Web2MexADL in action!

Generating a software architecture from a web application:

Detailed Presentation

More information can be found in the following SlideShare presentation

How to use it

The GenerateArchitectureFromWar tutorial includes detailed instructions of how to create a software architecture from an existing WAR file. You may also create an architecture from an Eclipse project, following a similar approach.

Installation

1. Install MexADL.
2. Install Graphviz.
3. Install the latest Eclipse Classic IDE.
4. Inside Eclipse, install the Web2Mexadl plugin (Help->Install New Software) using the following update site: http://web2mexadl.googlecode.com/git/mx.itesm.web2mexadl.site/

Reference

Castrejón, J., Lozano, R., Vargas-Solar, G.: “Web2MexADL: Discovery and Maintainability Verification of Software Systems Architecture”. In: 16th European Conference on Software Maintenance and Reengineering (CSMR 2012) - Tool demonstration track, March 2012.

Note: A public version of this paper can be found right here.

Notes

• The current implementation has been tested on Mac OS X 10.6 - 10.7 and on Ubuntu 11.10
• To make sure that Eclipse has access to the correct PATH in Mac OS X, perform the following steps: (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/135688/setting-environment-variables-in-os-x)
• Open a terminal and type: sudo vi /etc/launchd.conf
• Add the following line: setenv PATH /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin
• Save the file and reboot your mac