Download User Manual Dracula

1. Getting started
In this chapter you will learn what Dracula is and what it is used for and how you
begin working with it. First we will discuss what Dracula allows you to do. Then we
show you how Dracula is started and which options you have when starting it.
1.1. What is Dracula?
As of the name “Dracula” you may expect that this program must have something to
do with vampires. It does not. Maybe it would sometimes be a horror to work with
it, but hopefully not. So what is Dracula then?
Dracula is a system to visualize an IML-graph which was created using the tools from
the Bauhaus Project developed at the University of Stuttgart. Such an IML-graph is
an intermediate representation of the sourcecode of a certain software system. Here
is a short overview of the functions Dracula provides:
• creating subgraphs (called “graphs”) of an IML-graph which can be viewed on
screen
• many tools to explore those graphs (like scrolling, zooming etc.) and manipulating them (e.g. hiding or adding certain nodes etc.)
• full control over the layout and the appearance of nodes and edges in the graphs
• a powerful scripting language (the DSL) for executing all functions of the system by script commands
• and much more. . .
You may ask how the hell did they come to this strange name “Dracula”? Ok, let us
try to explain it. The word “graph” which Dracula is all about as you know already
sounds very similar to the german word “Graf”. And “Graf” is the german word for
“count”. Now, one of the most famous counts is of course count “Dracula”, so this
name was chosen for the system.
1.2. Starting Dracula
You may think that starting Dracula should be a simple task and indeed it is. Just
change into the directory where Dracula was installed to and type
5th December 2003: 8:48
7