Projectional editing

As explained in Building User-Friendly DSLs

An editor that presents a structured representation of language content as a user interface for manipulating that content.

Projectional editing presents structured DSL content as a user interface rather than as editable plain text. The editor projects the underlying data without losing its structure, allowing users to manipulate content according to the language’s permitted form. section 1.2.2 section 1.5

A projectional editor works directly on an abstract syntax tree (AST). Unlike a textual DSL workflow, it does not depend on editing characters and then parsing them into an intermediate representation. section 1.2 section 1.2.3

Within a Domain IDE, projectional editing supports a practical development flow:

• The frontend displays DSL content in a browser and lets domain experts manipulate it through the editor. section 1.2.2
• The backend stores the structured content in a repository and exposes it through an API. section 1.2.2
• A build system feeds the stored content to a code generator, which produces parts of the Runtime. section 1.2.2

Figure 1.14 The architecture of the Domain IDE

Use the architecture diagram to trace how the projectional editor connects domain experts, the repository, and generated Runtime code. section 1.2.2

How Building User-Friendly DSLs covers it

How deep it goes

Explains the editor’s structured representation and AST basis, while deferring detailed implementation and textual parsing topics.

Examples

Uses a browser-based Domain IDE, structured DSL content, a repository, and generated Runtime code as concrete artifacts.

What you can do after

Evaluate/understand how structured DSL content moves from browser editing through storage and code generation into a Runtime.

How it connects

Connects abstract syntax trees, domain-specific languages, Domain IDEs, code generation, and textual DSL parsing.

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Related concepts

• parsingcontrasts with · Parsing is the analysis of input according to structural or syntactic rules to identify its components and produce a structured, usable representation.
• abstract syntax treeuses · An abstract syntax tree is a hierarchical tree representation of the syntactic structure of parsed source code or other language input, typically omitting superficial formatting details.
• DSL editorkind of · An interactive editor that assists users in authoring and modifying syntactically and semantically valid domain-specific language content.
• subject matter expertused by · A subject matter expert is a person with specialized knowledge or experience in a particular subject area, problem domain, or professional field.

This explainer was generated by Manning's knowledge graph from the text of Building User-Friendly DSLs. The section links point to the parts of the book it draws on.