The Profile Editor, which comes with each of the Profile Generator editions, provides an intuitive user interface for maintaining frameworks. Everything you need to do can be accomplished via a set of related dialogs where information you enter in one dialog is immediately available in the others. You no longer have to create numerous diagram types and manually related the various parts of your framework. One licensed user of Model Guardian told us it took him 2 hours to accomplish what would have taken him 2 weeks in Enterprise Architect’s native framework development environment.

You can start from scratch or start with a commercially available framework from OAD Systems or one of its partner vendors.

The elements of the framework include:

• Tag definitions
• Object Types that become Toolbox items and the stereotypes of the elements created from them. Object Types can be assigned tags that are automatically added to elements create from the Toolbox items.
• Connector Types that can be Toolbox items and Quicklinks. Connector Types can be assigned tags that are automatically added to links created from the Toolbox items or Quicklinks.
• Relationships that are composed of two endpoints and a connector. The endpoints can be Object Types from the framework or simply stereotyped UML elements. Likewise, the connector can be a Connector Type from the framework or simply a stereotyped UML connector. This gives you the freedom to define relationships for non-framework based elements.
• Toolbox Sections that can be used in multiple Toolboxes
• Toolboxes that contain the Object and Connector Types to be used to create elements and links within your models
• Diagram Types that have an associated Toolbox and can be assigned to Object Types.

The Profile Editor provides features for managing the development of your frameworks. You can build your own frameworks or start with  one of the frameworks available from OAD Systems or its partners and modify it to your precise needs.

The Profile Editor maintains a complete framework development environment for you. You develop your frameworks in a Work-in-Progress (WIP) area and then release them for general use. This helps to ensure that you do not apply untested work in your production environment. Each time you save your work, it is automatically archived. You can then retrieve previous versions.

Distributing your framework is as simple as copying a single file to the target computers.

The Custom Framework Editor includes all of the features of the Custom Framework Runtime edition, allowing you to develop, test, and run your frameworks with a single tool.