IUModelPlugIn Interface
If a DLL is added to UModel as a plug-in, it is necessary that it registers a COM component that answers to an IUModelPlugIn interface. The IUModelPlugin interface exposes the following methods, all of which must be implemented by a client plug-in.
•OnInitialize
•OnRunning
•OnShutdown
•GetUIModifications
•GetDescription
•OnCommand
•OnUpdateCommand
Method Declaration | Usage | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
OnInitialize(pUModel as IDispatch) | The OnInitialize method of the interface implementation is called when the plug-in is initialized and before DDE or batch commands are processed.
You can attach notifiers and listen to UModel events, but should not start new commands / modifications until the OnRunning method is called.
pUModel holds a reference to the dispatch interface of the Application object of UModel. | ||||||||
OnRunning(pUModel as IDispatch) | The OnRunning method of the interface implementation is called when the plug-in is initialized and after DDE or batch commands are processed.
The application is now fully initialized and you can start new commands / modifications and modify UML data.
pUModel holds a reference to the dispatch interface of the Application object of UModel. | ||||||||
OnShutdown(pUModel as IDispatch) | The OnShutdown method of the interface implementation is called immediately before the plug-in is unloaded (e.g. because the application will shut down).
pUModel holds a reference to the dispatch interface of the Application object of UModel. | ||||||||
GetUIModifications() as String | The GetUIModifications() method is called during initialization of the plug-in, to get the configuration XML data that defines the changes to the UI of UModel.
The method is called when the plug-in is loaded for the first time, and at every start of UModel.
See Configuration XML for a detailed description on how to change the UI. | ||||||||
GetDescription() as String
| GetDescription() is used to define the description string for the plug-in entries visible in the Customize dialog box. | ||||||||
OnCommand(nID as long, pUModel as IDispatch) | The OnCommand() method of the interface implementation, is called each time a command, added by the plug-in (menu item or toolbar button), is processed.
nID stores the command ID defined by the ID element of the respective UIElement.
pUModel holds a reference to the dispatch interface of the Application object of UModel. | ||||||||
OnUpdateCommand(nID as long, pUModel as IDispatch) as UModelUpdateAction | The OnUpdateCommand() method is called each time the visible state of a button, or menu item, needs to be set.
nID stores the command ID defined by the ID element of the respective UIElement.
pUModel holds a reference to the dispatch interface of the Application object.
Possible return values (as defined in UModelUpdateAction) to set the update state are:
Values can be combined using the bitwise OR operator (for example, UModelUpdateAction_Enable | UModelUpdateAction_Check ). |
For a very simple interface implementation example, see Implement IUModelPlugIn Interface. Other sample implementations are available (as Visual Studio solutions) at the following path: C:\Users\<username>\Documents\Altova\UModel2025\UModelExamples\IDEPlugIn.
The sequence diagram below shows how UModel interacts with IUModelPlugIn:
