[[Property:title|Eiffel Information System]]
[[Property:weight|-2]]
[[Property:uuid|7e0394e1-cb31-fae3-79b6-9d1847ef8db7]]
The Eiffel Information System (EIS) provides a unified mechanism for linking development objects - e.g., classes and features - of Eiffel systems with '''external''' information resources. External means information other than Eiffel program texts. Usually the tools associated with external resources are separate from Eiffel, such as web browsers. Examples of external information resources and possible corresponding external tools are: 
*  Resource: Web page -- External Tool: default web browser
*  Resource: PDF document -- External Tool: Adobe Acrobat

EIS is also intended to be the standard mechanism for obtaining help on Eiffel and EiffelStudio, replacing previous solutions. In that case, external tools may actually be Eiffel tools. 

EIS makes two mechanisms available to users: '''Outgoing''' (from Eiffel to external tools), '''Incoming''' (the reverse).

Examples of outgoing mechanisms include: 
*  Associating EIS '''annotations''' containing references to external resources with certain Eiffel components of Eiffel systems. 
*  Automatically opening the corresponding external tool to display or edit information associated with an annotation.
*  Listing all external information (in a class, cluster or entire system) corresponding to a specified tag.

Examples of incoming mechanisms include: 
*  For supported tools, selecting external information linked to an Eiffel developer object and having EiffelStudio open automatically and targeted to that object. 

