UnitMetrics

UnitMetrics is an open-source tool project aiming to deliver useful information about a project and its related documents. Continuously gathering information the tool utilizes a set of available metrics and related analyze steps to provide useful findings for its users. Once the information are available certain views exist to easily view and interpret those findings.

Figure 1 - Views demonstrating UnitMetrics in action

Current State of Work

Currently most of the necessary ground work has been done. The plugin is quite ready for a test-drive. Installation and usage should be straight forward. Check the 'Getting Started' section for further instructions.

The work presented can be considered in being late alpha-state. Everything is usable and work-proofed. But a lot of glitches and show-stoppers might be found. If you find some please spend some minutes in reporting them using the project-pages at SourceForge.net. This is also true for misspellings, missing documentation, missing information in general or feature requests.

Getting Started

The 'Getting Started' section outlines some of the most interesting setup ideas. The section is an outtake of the plugin documentation. You might want to check the Info Center (Help Center) of Eclipse to find additional information about the plugin and its incorporated functions and parts.

Download and Install

The plugin may be downloaded right from the SourceForge.net project download page. Once you have downloaded it, just drop the plugins in the Eclipse plugins folder and restart Eclipse. The required steps to configure and use it can be read in the 'Getting Started' section.

The Experts

One of UnitMetrics' unique features is the expert concept. Using software metrics often requires some basic knowledge and experience to correctly interpret the metric values. Those findings (metric values) often need to be interpreted in some context. For instance a Java-class having a length of 100 source lines (LOC) may be slightly to big for a plain Java class but quite acceptable small for a class describing a comprehensive GUI-Object. An expert is providing basic quality ratings for easier interpretation of metric values and also allowing people new to a certain metric (or the whole metric area) to get instantly value out of the tool.

Using all the information and comprehensive experts UnitMetrics offers you some insides in your programming and non-programming projects. It features highly interesting information, instant quality ratings and additional information about improving your work, including the possibilities and limitations of those findings. For starting today, just check out the ' Getting Started' section and follow the provided tutorials for setting up your projects and view your first metric values.

Extending It

UnitMetrics can be adapted to your very own needs. Most of the different feature sets can be extended by providing different extensions using custom plug-ins. To extend UnitMetrics the tool defines certain extension points which can be used to contribute new functionality (behavior) and useful views. By inspecting the realization of the Java extension one should be able to extend the tool in any relevant means. Additional information may be found in the code, asked in the mailing list or in the plugin documentation.

Getting Involved

Since UnitMetrics is an open-source attempt anyone may join and add value. There a different areas waiting for your support. According to your abilities and available time you may want to help us by providing additional documentation and internationalization, filing in defect reports and feature requests or deliver your impressions (success / non-success stories). You may improve the code quality, implement and realize existing or all-new metrics or join force to port the tool to other platforms. For more detailed information see the plugin documentation. And remember this is an open source project and so it is driven like one - You want to contribute, you can contribute!