Kali-ma: A semantic guide to browsing and accessing functionalities in plugin-based tools

It is typical of plugin-based platforms such as the Eclipse RCP to be extensible by addition of functionalities. Such systems can undoubtedly benefit from having a vast developer community contributing to their enrichment. However, the proliferation of functionalities plugged in a system can be detrimental to its usability and bring confusion and clutter, as users who lack prior knowledge of the available features and how to access them can be unable to spot those that suit their needs. We present Kali-ma, a tool that equips Eclipse-based ontology engineering platforms with a GUI that allows users to browse and access plugin functionalities. The Kali-ma interface is dynamically generated by matching installed plugins with ontologies that describe their capabilities in the Semantic Web. It can adapt to selected criteria for classifying tools, and its approach is portable across systems supporting other domains, such as software engineering and business process management. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.