Lorgnette: Creating Malleable Code Projections

Projections of computer languages are tools that help users interact with representations that better fit their needs than plain text. We collected 62 projections from the literature and from a design workshop and found that 60% of them can be implemented using a table, a graph or a form. However, projections are often hardcoded for specific languages and situations, and in most cases only the developers of a code editor can create or adapt projections, leaving no room for appropriation by their users. We introduce lorgnette, a new framework for letting programmers augment their code editor with projections. We demonstrate five examples that use lorgnette to create projections that can be reused in new contexts. We discuss how this approach could help democratise projections and conclude with future work.

• Human-centered computing → Interactive systems and tools;

• Software and its engineering → Software notations and tools.