[antlr-interest] Am I right here? :-) Generating GUIs from a Grammar

[Ben Senior]

Hello, I really hope that some kind person can point me in the right 
direction, or warn me off my plans....

Is ANTLR/ANTLRWorks appropriate for automatically generating a GUI for 
sentence construction based on an arbitrary grammar?

I'm sick of generating "admin" GUI's by hand for new projects.  
Generating GUI's from models (like in Ruby on Rails) is ok, but not 
cross-platform or particularly powerful.

Recently, I had one of those "epiphanies" where it became clear that I 
can model most problems *much* more clearly using a Grammar.

The next logical step would be to help users visually construct valid 
sentences from the definition of that Grammar - but the tool that helps 
them do that should be generated as automatically as possible from the 
given grammar.

The basic outline would be to offer the user an empty tree starting with 
the root node.  It would be obvious from each node in the tree, which 
nodes the user can then "instanciate".  Each instantiated node then 
displays which further nodes/rules can be instanced, and when a rule is 
found for which (in another file) I have specified a "configuration 
class" the user can then set the various knobs and dials I provide in 
that configuration class (e.g. values, lists, and other primitives which 
become terminals).

Although I've been programming for decades, I've only really just 
started playing with LEX/YACC/ANTLR in the last few days - and been 
bitterly regretting that I haven't been using them for years!

Has this already been done?  Is it doable?  Am I pursuing the right path 
with ANTLR?  I prostrate myself before your superior collective wisdom! :-)

Tx Ben