Extending Generation and Creating Separate Generation Targets

Extensions can be used to extend generation and create new generation targets.

The following table shows how you can customize the standard BPM, OOM, or XSM generation from the Resource Editor:

Generation dialog	Extension
Targets page	The Target page is displayed if the Complement language generation property is selected (see Extension Properties) and if the extension contains at least one task or generated file.
Options page	Define options in Generation\Options .
Tasks page	Define commands in Generation\Commands and reference these commands in tasks.

If you want to create separate generation targets (available from the Tools > Extended Generation command), you must respect the following conditions:

The Complement Language Generation check box in the extension property sheet must not be selected
The extension contains generated files and templates. During generation, the evaluation of a template generates text which is written to a file.

This type of generation is called extended generation. If you have several extensions designed for extended generation, these will appear in the Targets page of the extended generation dialog box.

You can create commands in the Tools menu to directly access extended generation for a selected target. To do so you have to:

Create a menu (see Menus (Profile)) under the Model metaclass in the Profile category of the extension, and select the Tools menu in the Location list
Create a method (see Methods (Profile)) to invoke extended generation as follows:

Sub %Method%(obj)

 Dim selection ' as ObjectSelection
 
 ' Create a new selection
 set selection = obj.CreateSelection
 
 ' Add object of the active selection in the created selection
 selection.AddActiveSelectionObjects

 ' Generate scripts for specific target
 InteractiveMode = im_Dialog
 obj.GenerateFiles "", selection, "specific target"
 
End Sub

Where specific target is the code of the extended generation target.

Add the method for extended generation to the menu in order to create a specific command
Save the extension

The new command is displayed in the Tools menu.

The Targets tab does not display because the underlying method already specifies a generation target.