Freon Documentation (version 0.5.0)

Freon — A Language Workbench for the Web

Freon is a Language Workbench (…in the making OOPS, so please let us know if you find anything not yet correct). It is a tool for creating mini-languages, which are also known as Domain Specific Languages (DSLs). Freon generates an integrated set of editor, scoper, typer, and validator for your mini-language from a small set of definitions. Together we call this the work environment for your language.

Noteworthy is that the generated editor is a projectional editor. See projectional editing to find out what projectional editor is and why is it different from an ordinary editor.

Freon was previously called ProjectIt

This workbench started out as a tool to create a projectional editor for the web. Recently, its nature has changed to being a tool to create a DSL. Therefore, it was decided to change the name. From now on, this tool will be called ‘Freon’, which is the Frisian word for ‘friend’. (If you want to know why this name was chosen, please read name change.) The old name will, unfortunately, still pop up sometimes. Sorry for the confusion, please understand that both names refer to the same tool.

There has been some discussion about how to pronounce Freon. A native Frisian speaker has been so kind to provide us with the following sound bite. (Thanks, Meinte!)

The Core Framework

The core of Freon is a TypeScript/JavaScript framework for building web-based, projectional editors. Editing expressions in a projectional editor is a well-known challenge. What makes the Freon framework unique is the fact that it has built-in support for expressions, so you can easily make a projectional editor that allows for a natural manner of editing.

The Generators

On top of the core framework there are five generators, each of which generates part of the work environment for your mini-language:

  • The language structure defines all the concepts, properties, and relationships in the language.
  • The editor defines how a model in the language looks like on the screen. It also defines what editing commands can be used to change the model.
  • The scoper defines how names that refer to other elements are being resolved.
  • The typer defines what the type of an element is.
  • The validator defines what a correct model looks like and wil provide errors whenever a model breaks these rules.

Why Is Freon As It Is?

Currently, Freon does not support the creation of debuggers, generators, and such. However, there is a beta version of an interpreter included. More documentation on this will follow later. Overall, we have a (large) wish list of extra features that we would like to implement in the future.

In some cases, like e.g. code generators, we think that integration with existing tools is the best solution. In other cases we plan to provide Freon components for specific functionality. Given time, we hope to realize many of these extra items.

If you want to know why we have chosen this development route, read our statement on the philosophy behind the tool.

What Are You: a Language Engineer or a User?

We assume that people who want to use Freon know at least the basics of making mini-languages. For instance, the terms metamodel, abstract syntax tree, scope, concrete syntax, parsing, etc., should be familiar. When we address the Freon user we call them a language engineer. The people that will be using the generated work environment are simply called users.

Welcome, Language Engineer

So welcome, language engineer, to the world of Freon. This website is meant for you. It explains how Freon can help you in creating a language and building a work environment for it. Please, browse through all the subjects. As a start, you could ..

.. or view the presentation and demo we gave on May 31, 2023 for MDENet.

The presentation

The demo

Have fun! If you have questions that are not answered in this documentation, please email us at info AT freon4dsl.dev.