The FW Profile together with the profile validator and the FW Action Language have been implemented as one plug-in (ch.ethz.profile.modeler) for Rational Software Modeler. The plug-in can be downloaded from here.

The ch.ethz.profile.modeler plug-in is freely and publicly available under the terms of the General Public License.

Where and how to install it?

The plug-in is distributed as a zip file. The content of the zip has to be unzipped and the ch.ethz.profile.modeler folder added to a plug-in repository of RSM. In particular, the repository of plug-ins can be found on the following path ...\6.0\ eclipse\plugins.

How to use it?

The following steps lead to a proper usage of the FW Profile that is supposed to be applied on a UML 2.0 model.

• Switch the RSM environment to the modeling perspective. In case that the modeling perspective is not accessible from the main toolbar, select the Window item from the main menu, select Open Perspective where should be listed all perspectives and among others also the modeling perspective.

• Create a new UML model or select the existing one. A new UML project or model can be created from the main menu, File->New->Project or UML Model.

• From the Model Explorer window select a root element (the model element) of a UML model, then from the property view select the Profile tab, click on the Add Profile button, select the FW Profile from a file (the FW Profile file is a part of the profile plug-in, ...\6.0\ eclipse\plugins\ch.ethz.profile.modeler\resources\profiles\EthFwProfile.profile.uml2).

• Build a model consisting of class diagrams and state machine diagrams. In particular, the building elements of state machines as states, transitions, trigger operations etc. will be automatically decorated by the stereotypes defined in the FW Profile.

Model validation can be performed in every step of model development. The validation process against the model constrains defined in the FW Profile can be invoked from the main menu of the RSM environment (Modeling->Run Validation). The other possibility to invoke the validation process is from the Model Explorer window. Select the root element of the model, use the right mouse click to invoke a pop-up menu from where the Run Validation action can be executed. Design errors are listed in the Problem view as well as highlighted in the model tree structure shown in the Model Explorer window.