HAnS: IDE-based editing support for embedded feature annotations

Paper in proceeding, 2021

When developers maintain or evolve software, they often need to know the locations of features. This proves challenging when the feature locations are not documented, when the code was written by different developers who may have left the organization, or when the developer's memory of the implementation has faded. Automated feature location techniques are hard to adopt in practice, especially since they boast too many false positives. To address these challenges, embedded feature annotations have been proposed to allow developers to trace features in code during development with minimal effort. However, tool support is needed for developers to effectively record and use these annotations. We propose HAnS as a tool to meet this need; it is implemented as an IntelliJ IDE plugin to support developers seamlessly record feature locations while they write their code. HAnS supports developers when mapping features to software assets, such as files and code fragments, with code completion and syntax highlighting. It also provides functionality to browse feature definitions and locations, as well as refactor features. A demo video is available at https://youtu.be/cx_-ZshHLgA.