Towards Open Graphical Tool-Building Framework Nowadays, there are many frameworks for developing domain-specific tools. However, if we want to create a really sophisticated tool with specific functionality requirements, it is not always an easy task to do. Although tool-building platforms offer some means for extending the tool functionality and accessing it from external applications, it usually requires a deep understanding of various technical implementation details. In this paper we try to go one step closer to a really open graphical tool-building framework that would allow both to change the behavior of the tool and to access the tool from the outside easily. We start by defining a specialization of metamodels which is a great and powerful facility itself. Then we go on and show how this can be applied in the field of graphical domain-specific tool building. The approach is demonstrated on an example of a subset of UML activity diagrams. The benefits of the approach are also clearly indicated. These include a natural and intuitive definition of tools, a strict logic/presentation separation and the openness for extensions as well as for external applications.

We propose new software architecture for interactive systems (systems with interacting components). This architecture, called the Transformation-Driven Architecture, TDA, uses certain ideas of the Model-Driven Architecture, MDA. However, unlike MDA, which uses models and model transformations at software development time, TDA uses them at runtime. To describe the dynamics of the system as well as interaction between the components, TDA uses special objects called events and commands.