MDR Frequently Asked Questions

Contents:
How can I create a MOF-compliant metamodel?
Is there any possibility of using MDR without NetBeans?

Question: How can I create a MOF-compliant metamodel?

Answer: There are several options for creating MOF metamodels. You can use any XMI and UML 1.4 compliant modeling tool to create a UML model that can be then transformed into a MOF model using UML2MOF tool (see http://mdr.netbeans.org/uml2mof). Another option is to use Rational Rose with XMI plug-in that is available from http://www.rational.com. The plug-in allows you to export your Rose models into MOF XMI. This option is however quite limited - the plug-in does not support whole MOF - just its subset, and since it is based on MOF 1.3, definition of datatypes is quite complicated. The last option is to handwrite the XMI for your metamodel. This is however not recommended as it is too difficult and error-prone.


Question: Is there any possibility of using MDR without NetBeans?

Answer: Yes, MDR is independent from NetBeans. It only uses a generic lookup library from NetBeans located in openide-lookup.jar. To use MDR in standalone mode (without MDR), you will need the following libraries:

Please refer to UML2MOF Tool for an example of a NetBeans-independent tool using MDR.