The ORM Foundation

Is there likely to be a standalone or non Visual Studio version of Norma?

I have been very interested in ORM for a number of years now and I still use the  unsupported Viso Modeller tool (used with WINE on a Linux box). However this is now getting long in the tooth and I would like to know if there are plans to have Norma available on other platforms/environments as I feel that this methodology is too valuable to be restricted to one development environment.

 Hi Hugh,

Hi Hugh,

NORMA is tightly integrated with the DSL Tools framework in Visual Studio. At the time the project was started (almost a decade ago) we also looked at web-based frameworks (there was no chance, the browsers simply weren't ready yet) and EMF in Eclipse. The big downfall on EMF was that it lacked the 'deleting' notification, which allows a graph of to-be-deleted elements to be examined while they are still attached to the model. This DSL feature was fundamental to enable incremental model validation.

What has changed since then:

1. Visual Studio now has a community edition, so you can use NORMA (2013 or 2015) without the professional version of Visual Studio. This will work in the Windows VM of your choice on Mac or Linux.
2. Web browsers are much more capable (HTML5, SVG, JavaScript speed, etc.). For example, the .orm file viewers at http://www.ormsolutions.com/tools/orm.aspx (display one diagram at a time) and http://www.ormsolutions.com/tools/ormPrint.aspx (all diagrams) let you look at the ORM diagrams in NORMA files on the browser. There are also directions on the site for using these viewers to display .orm files hosted on your own servers.