5.6 Automating the adaptation of UML-F pattern annotations

So-called 'wizards' (Microsoft, 2001) and active cookbooks (Pree, 1995) support framework adaptations by means of tools that are tailored to a specific framework. As the cookbook recipes for the essential construction principles are generic, generic tool support can be provided for the particular adaptation task. A Unification wizard, for example, would basically ask the framework user to provide the subclass name and would then generate a skeleton of a class that overrides the hook method it might also check whether the hook method is called from other methods within the class or from outside. The wizards for the other essential construction principles would follow the steps listed in the generic cookbook recipes in an analogous way.

Such UML-F-based adaptation tools could also offer the possibility of specifying adaptation steps or constraints specific to a particular variation point. An appropriate tool would guide a framework user through the adaptation of each UML-F annotated variation point that the user desires to adapt. A prototype of such a tool is described in (Fontoura, 1999).