Pattern-based auto-completion of UML modeling activities

Abstract

Auto-completion of textual inputs when using IDEs benefits software development experts and novices. Researchers demonstrated that auto-completion is beneficial for graphical modeling tasks as well. However, supporting software development by auto-completing UML modeling activities remains largely unexplored by research and unsupported by modeling tools. By matching editing operations to activity patterns, partly performed modeling activities can be recognized and automatically completed. This paper proposes an approach that computes auto-completions for partly performed modeling activities while a developer is creating or evolving UML models. Selected auto-completions can be previewed and adjusted before being executed. We claim, that this approach can improve developers' modeling efficiency. Therefore, we assessed our approach based on a catalog of common modeling activities for structural UML models and found that effort for conducting defined modeling activities can be reduced significantly.