1.2. Installation

Preconditions

• You need a working Python interpreter, version 2.4+.
• You need Plone 2.5.3+ or Plone 3.0.1+ installed (choose the latest stable release) and its dependencies to see your generated code in action. Plone 3 is supported by the subversion-trunk.
• You need the libraries of Zope 2.10 (or Zope 3.3) available in your system. ArchGenXML needs them to run, not the generated code.
• We also recommend upgrading Archetypes to the latest stable release, preferably latest 1.4.x, 1.5.x or later.

Download & Installation

The trunk is planned to be always stable, because development is done on branches.

using easy_install

with easy_install configured, you can download and install ArchGenXML using the Python Cheeseshop.

Just type easy_install archgenxml.

ArchGenXML will be installed in your Pythons library directory, a symlink to the executable will be placed into the directory your system normally would expect user executable binaries.

from the tarball (*.tgz) or subversion

You need to download the release tarball of ArchGenXML from plone.org's products section. Choose the most recent version or use the bleeding edge development version - best choice with latest Plone Versions - from the Subversion repository.

• untar tar xzf ArchGenXML-2.xy.tgz to a directory of your choice.
• change into the directory cd ArchGenXML
• start python setup.py install or
• on Debian based systems you can build your debian package with fakeroot debian/rules binary and install the package with for example dpkg -i archgenxml_2.0_i386.deb - and remove it later - without any garbage left or
• ArchGenXML will be installed in your Pythons library directory, a symlink to the executable will be placed into the directory your system normally would expect user executable binaries.

on Debian based systems such as Debian or Ubuntu

• add XX TODO to your package sources, for example edit /etc/apt/sources
• apt-get update
• apt-get install archgenxml
• you can use for above tasks the package-manager of your choice (such as Synaptic).

after installation configuration

You need to tell ArchGenXML where to find Zope 3.3 or Zope 2.10 (which includes Zope 3.3.). You can include the path to your Zope into the PYTHONPATH. This has one major disadvantage: A Zope instance running on your system might get confused by it, which might result in fancy behaviour of Zope.

A better solution is to provide a file .agx_zope_path in your users HOME-directory. Put one single line with the full /PATH/TO/zope2.10/lib/python in here. ArchGenXML will add it to its internal python library search path and will find the zope modules.

Additional software

To get all the features of ArchGenXML, you may need some of the following.

For code generation:

i18ndude

Without this, the generation of translatable user interface strings is disabled. Instructions/ download

Stripogram

Some UML tools produce HTML in the documentation elements in XMI. Stripogram converts them into plain text. Without having Stripogram installed this feature is disabled. Download and install stripogram from the squishdot project on sourceforge.net.

For running the generated code (optional)

ATVocabularyManager

Enables usage of custom dynamic vocabularies. Download and install the product

Relations

enables complex references. Download and install the product

CompoundField

enables usage of multiplicity on fields an definition of fields as a compound of other fields. Download and install the product

Remember

enables contentish custom member objects. Download and install the product

UML Tools

ArchGenXML processes models stored in XMI. This XML format isn't intended to be written in a plain text editor nor in a tree based XML editor, so you will almost certainly use a UML design tool. Below is a more or less complete list of such tools. If you know about any others tools missing from this list, have more detailed information or have experience with a tool in combination with ArchGenXML, please write the author a short e-mail.

ArgoUML

Website and download: argouml.tigris.org

Read Using ArgoUML with ArchGenXML.

• Free software
• Written in Java
• Runs on most platforms
• Stores the model natively as XMI + diagram information in .xmi, .uml. or .zargo files (ziped .uml files).
• No undo (planned for future)
• Some known, but non-critical bugs

Poseidon (by Gentleware)

Website and download,

• Commercial software - so called Community Edition for low-cost license available, supports XMI version 1.2
• Written in Java, runs on most platforms
• commercial fork of ArgoUML (theres no synchronisation between projects)
• Stores the model natively as XMI + diagram information in .zuml files (zip files)
• Is very slow and needs lots of memory and a fast CPU

ObjectDomain

Website and download: objectdomain.com

• Commercial, free time-limited demo for <= 30 classes
• Written in Java
• Runs on most platforms
• Need to export model from proprietary .odm format to .xmi

Powerdesigner (by Sybase)

Website and download: sybase.com

• XMI version 1.1
• Need to export model to xmi

Umbrello (KDE)

Website and download: uml.sourceforge.net

• Free software
• Runs under Linux/KDE
• Stores the model natively as XMI
• At the time of testing (somewhere in the first half of 2004), Umbrello wasn't complete and the XMI not 100% standards compliant. Umbrello promises to support XMI correctly on version 1.4, which will be shipped with KDE 3.4. (please report your experience).

An almost complete list of UML tools can be found at www.jeckle.de/umltools.htm.

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