How to Play In

How to Play In

Natural language play-in

To use Natural Language Play-in, click the 'NL Play-In' button.

Consequently, the play-in session starts, and the 'NL Play-in' view opens. To play in, enter LSC name and the requirement:

When the 'Online Parsing' button is pressed, the text is parsed and is checked after each space.
The LSC is created (when no errors exist) when pressing ENTER, or when clicking the '+' button at the view toolbar.

In the 'NL Play-In' view, errors appear underlined by a squiggly line, and when hovering on them with the mouse an explanation appears, and when relevant also possible solutions. Click on a solution to select it, or edit the text to fix it yourself:

Tips for playing in natural language requirements:

1. Sentences should be explicit, with a clear object, verb and adjective. For example, "when the user clicks the button, the light state changes to on".
2. The comma after each part (or a 'then' or 'and') is important and must be present. For example "when the user clicks the button, the display shows Hello", or "when the user clicks the button then the display shows Hello".
3. To refer to a specific object, use 'the'. To refer to a non-specific object, use 'a' or 'any'. For example: ‘click the button’ or ‘click a button’.
4. Use lower case constantly (object names too).
5. Use the exact name of the object as it appears in the system model.

Examples for requirements in the system's natural language, can be found here.

Basic play-in

To use Basic play-in, click the 'Basic Play-In' button.

Consequently, the play-in session starts. If a GUI exists it is launched, from which you can start play-in:

• Clicking an object in the GUI creates a diagram snippet reflecting the click.
• Use the Play-In toolbar to control some of the play-in operations, such as applying modality (hot/cold, monitor/execute):
  

• Insert new LSC elements, such as new LSC, new Instance, Assertion, Assignment etc…
  

• You may want to carry out operations on the GUI without affecting the LSC (e.g., for restoring the GUI to a state from which you want to play in). To do this, press the 'Ignore GUI Play-In' button, next to the 'Play-In Mode' drop-down button, and carry out the required operation. Once done, press the 'Ignore GUI Play-In' button again, to release it (in which case GUI operations will no longer be ignored):
  

• Once created, LSC construct properties can be modified via the properties view and the right-click menu:
  

System model play-in

One can also play in by selecting an object from the system model, right-clicking it and selecting the required operation. For example, to add a lifeline, right-click an object and select 'Add Object as Lifeline':

To add a self message (from an object to itself), right-click a method of an object and select 'Call Message'. If the message requires input parameters, the play-in view will open, and will prompt the user to add the required message parameters:

To add a message from one object to another, right-click the source object and select 'Call Other Object', then, right-click a method of the target object and select 'Call Message'. Once again, if the message requires input parameters, the play-in view will open, and will prompt the user to add the required message parameters.