Recently we at Nedap Healthcare released Archie version 2.0, a java library for creating applications working with OpenEHR Archetypes and Reference Model data. It introduces support for the latest ADL/AOM features: soft terminology constraints and RM overlays. The first allows for terminology constraint codes to be specified with an example, preferred, extensible or required binding strength, allowing for more options in specialisation or in templates. The RM overlay allows for attributes in the RM at a specific place defined in an archetype or template to be hidden, shown, or renamed.
Of course, modelling tools will have to be updated for these new features to be usable. We did that for one such tool, the OpenEHR visual studio code plugin. It transforms visual studio code into a full IDE for OpenEHR archetypes. As such, it is intended for people who are at least somewhat comfortable editing ADL files by hand. To try it, install visual studio code and open an ADL 1.4 or 2.x file in it. Visual studio code will prompt to install the plugin. Alternatively, you can visit OpenEHR ADL & AQL support - Visual Studio Marketplace and install it from there. Version 0.5.0 of the plugin supports the new features. In addition, the latest version supports syntax highlighting and hovers for the expression language included in ADL 2.
In Archie 2.0 the JSON and XML serialisation of the Archetype Object Model also have been made compliant with the official specification, including full backwards compatibility with the earlier formats.
For a full list of release notes, see Releases · openEHR/archie · GitHub .
For the specification of the rm_overlay in ADL 2, including what to use it for and how to use it, see Archetype Definition Language 2 (ADL2)
For the specification of soft terminology constraints in ADL 2, see Archetype Definition Language 2 (ADL2)