mps-tips

Custom Cells

The Editor DSL allows embedding custom cells via the CellModel_custom aka $custom cell$ aka custom and even custom Swing Components via the CellModel_JComponent aka $swing component$ aka swing component. These are very powerful features, but they are not very well documented. This page tries to collect some information about how to use them.

Swing Component

After adding a swing component cell to the editor, you need to implement a component provider in the Inspector:

component provider: (node, editorContext)->JComponent {
  <no statements>
}

You need to, given the editor context and node, return the JComponent to be displayed in the cell. To be able to instantiate any JComponent, you usually want to import the model javax.swing@java_stub. Then you can use the new expression to instantiate any JComponent you want.

Adding a button that performs some action when clicked is explained pretty well by the Series “Writing an importer” by Sergej Koščejev on https://specificlanguages.com/, specifically Post 6: Invoking from the Editor.

Custom Cell

After adding custom cell to the editor, you need to implement a cell provider in the Inspector:

cell provider (editorContext, node)->AbstractCellProvider {
  <no statements>
}

You need to, given the editor context and node, return an AbstractCellProvider, which produces cell instances to be displayed in the cell. To be able to instantiate an AbstractCellProvider, you usually want to import the model jetbrains.mps.nodeEditor@java_stub. Then you can instantiate an anonymous subclass of AbstractCellProvider:

(editorContext, node)->AbstractCellProvider {
  new AbstractCellProvider(node) {
    @Override
    public EditorCell createEditorCell(EditorContext p1)  {
      <no statements>
    }
  };
}

Alternatively you can also create a named subclass of AbstractCellProvider in an util model and instantiate that.

If you want to store the node as its actual node type (node<MyConcept>) within the Provider, you can also override the constructor with a typed argument, store in a typed class attribute and pass it down to the super constructor. Alternatively, you can also store the node in a final attribute of the class (does not need constructor and therefore works in anonymous class).

To be able to instantiate cells, you usually want to import the model jetbrains.mps.nodeEditor.cells@java_stub. I’ve found that the cells EditorCell_Constant and EditorCell_RefPresentation are particularly useful. Additionally, this technique can be used to create error cells, as described in Error Cells.

It is also possible to set the style on those cells:

• First import model jetbrains.mps.editor.runtime.style@java_stub
• Then set the style on a given cell: e.g.

  cell.getStyle().set(StyleAttributes.INDENT_LAYOUT_INDENT, true);
  

EditorCell_RefPresentation

Here is a Snippet on how to create a EditorCell_RefPresentation:

This snippet additionally needs these model imports:

• jetbrains.mps.smodel.action@java_stub for IReferentPresentationProvider
• org.jetbrains.annotations@java_stub for @NotNull
• org.jetbrains.mps.openapi.model@java_stub for SNode
• jetbrains.mps.editor.runtime.style@java_stub for StyleAttributes

EditorCell_Property refCell = EditorCell_RefPresentation.create(editorContext, sourceNode, targetNode, new IReferentPresentationProvider() {
  @NotNull()
  @Override
  public String getPresentation(@NotNull() SNode p1, @NotNull() SNode p2)  {
    p2.getPresentation();
  }
});
// No idea why these two are necessary and why the "ref" cell does not do this automatically
refCell.setReferenceCell(true);
refCell.getStyle().set(StyleAttributes.NAVIGATABLE_NODE, targetNode);
return refCell;

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