I'm using Microsoft Visio to draw my UML Diagrams.
More specifically the "UML Class" package as shown below
I want to define my class as Abstract and I don't find any "Properties tab" or somth to manage any class options.
Is there any way to achieve this another way than simply set the class name as Italic in the text format option ?
EDIT
The solution provided here doesn't seem to fit with newer version of Visio as long as i can't find a "Properties" tab.
MS Visio is not the greatest tool to create UML models. Of course it lets you draw nice diagrams, especially with the right packages, but what you get is not really related to each other.
Getting back to your question, there are many different possibilities depending on specific UML package you use. If you don't have anything special and you can't find some "Abstract" or IsAbstract" property of the class, you can always just change the text format to Italic.
All the "smarts" (for want of a better name) have been removed from the UML shapes in the later versions of Visio, 2013 onwards as far as I know. There is a "Properties" attribute to the Class shape in Visio 2010 but not in Visio 2016. The shapes are now just plain and simple.
I tried to use UMLDesigner to draw my project related diagrams. I see there is a Arrange functionality that can automatically layout diagram elements and links to save some manual work. But when i used it in my Activity diagrams it designed it upside down.
Here is an example. I created following simple activity diagram.
And here is how auto layout result for the same model looks like: auto layout.
The initial node is at the bottom and the final nodes are on top. But i want it the other way - to start at the top and end at the bottom. Is there a way to configure this?
I tried pinning starting and final nodes but it just made a mess after arranging the rest automatically. I searched the settings but couldn't find anything. I use UML Designer Version 7.1.0.
Thanks ahead for any help.
I am sorry there is no way from the preferences to change this behaviour.
This is because I never provide a specific layout for this diagram. Please, fill an issue in the bug tracker and it will be fixed for the next version of UML Designer as it is really easy to fix: https://github.com/ObeoNetwork/UML-Designer/issues.
Thanks for your feedback!
I am using UMLET to design the UML Sequence diagram for my system, i don't use the "all in one" option but the simple one dragging and editing the diagram components, so far so good, but i need to create an alt fragment with 2 or 3 guard conditions, i can't findd examples or documentation about it, the fragment component in the program doesn't show how to achieve my goal, could someone please help me?
You can create alt fragment with the interaction frame thingy in the palette.
Then in the diagram itself you can populate it with something like
alt
--
[x>0]
--
[x=0]
--
[x<0]
Note:
I would highly advise you against using this palette. Once you start making changes to it, it is a nightmare to manage as everything starts to misbehave — e.g. if you wanted to increase the space for [x=0] part, then you would add <enter> in the Properites window, however the messages and rest of the diagram will not move and you have to adjust it manually.
Not to mention that creating it manually this way is more time consuming.
So if you want to create sequence diagrams, you should either use the all-in-one palette, or other tool, such as PlantUML which has much nicer syntax (and looks better): http://plantuml.com/sequence.html
With Enterprise Architect (Version 9.2), I created some Class and Sequence UML Diagrams. Now I need those Diagrams in a Word document.
My first approach was to just cut them out with the Windows 7 Snipping Tool and paste them into the document. But for printing purposes the quality was way too poor.
The second approach was to "Save them as Images" as offered in Enterprise Architect. But with this, the quality was even worse.
The third way was to export them into a pdf file. With this the quality was quite decent and I could import those pdfs into Inkscape and then convert them into *.png files to import them to word. The problem is, that Enterprise Architect kinda fails with the fonts. Meaning the picture itself has high-quality, but it tries to convert the font of the classes and then I have some spaces between letters where there should be none.
So long story short - is there a way to export my UML Diagrams from Enterprise Architect to a common picture format like .png or .tiff, while retaining decent quality?
As I'm sure you're already aware, you can save a diagram as an image in several formats, including PNG but not TIFF.
The quality of the images can be controlled in the options (Tools - Options), "Diagram" tab.
The "Image Memory Limit" controls the amount of memory the image conversion process is allowed; increasing this should improve the quality of large diagrams.
"Scale Saved Bitmaps to" allows you to set a higher resolution for the images.
I haven't checked whether these also affect the copy-to-clipboard function (in the Diagram menu or CTRL+B), which is the way I usually copy diagrams into documents.
To have diagrams in word there is very easy way.
Simply, open diagram in ea then select all with CTRL+A, then copy CTRL+C, go in word and just do paste CTRL+V. Easy and perfect quality.
For some reason, when you use Ctrl-B to export a Sparx EA model to MS Word, you get a bitmap copied to the clipboard, but when you paste into Powerpoint, you get an Enhanced Metafile. This is vector graphics which can be zoomed into etc. with no loss of detail.
Prep
Before you start, go into EA and Tools->Options (or hit Ctrl-F9).
Ensure that the General properties page is selected.
Check 'Clipboard' is set to 'Metafile' (if it is set to Bitmap, you will
only ever get a bitmap produced, even in Powerpoint).
Steps
Open your EA model to be exported.
Open Powerpoint and clear the default bounding boxes leaving a blank slide.
Open Word and locate the point in your document where you want to paste the model.
Back to EA, open your model window and hit Ctrl-B (Diagram->Paste Image to Clipboard)
Go into Powerpoint and hit Ctrl-V to paste.
Resize the model to fit the slide.
Hit Ctrl A then Ctrl C to ensure everything is copied to the clipboard.
Go into Word and hit Ctrl-V to paste - you should now have an EA model in EMF metafile format, not a bitmap. Document reviewers can now zoom in and see the full detail in the model.
Do the following:
PACKAGE->Documetation->Publish as HTML
Create new folder for output and set the path in"Output" field.
-> Press Generate
Goto ..[your folder]\EARoot, the files named EA*.[png|gif] are your diagram
images in original resolution.
Myself, I used ctrl+P and used my pdf converter for printing.
- Before this, I setup the page size in the Diagram properties -> Diagram -> Page Setup -> Advanced.
- I set "Scale to one page" then i click "Page Setup", choose the appropriate page size and orientation.
- My PDF converter is PDFCreator: http://download.cnet.com/PDFCreator/3000-2064_4-10558866.html
While I see that you seem to have this resolved (happy to hear), I'll post this in case others don't have any luck with the above.
I've always just selected (ctrl+A for the whole diagram) and pasted in to Word/PPT/Outlook and the diagrams were converted automatically to nice PNG scalable images (without ever changing the memory/quality settings).
But on a recent project it seems that when I tried to do the same the quality was very poor/fuzzy and the text was sort of squashed.
Are you by chance using Remote Desktop to connect to a machine that is Running Sparx EA? There is another thread floating around somewhere (sorry don't have the link) where others were having this similar trouble when connected via RDP in Full screen display mode. I was able to export good quality from a non-RDP session, or I think if I connected via RDP but not in Full-Screen mode it owuld export in the quality I'm used to.
Hope this helps anyone else with a similar issue
Change your diagram themes, go to tools->diagram->Themes and change diagram themes to "blueprint" and go to file->Print to PDF
With Version 13 (probably older versions as well) you can press Ctrl-T to open the dialog "Save as Image". There you can choose between .png, .bmp, .jpeg, .tga, .gif, .wmf and .emf.
Copy the diagram Ctrl + A, Ctrl + C and paste it into Microsoft Paint and then save it as jpg/png file.
Is there a way to just lay everything out in the "best" possible manner, using the entire drawing area available? Or do I have to position the various elements myself?
You can try using the "Lay Out Shapes" dialog in Visio 2003. Go to the Shape menu and click on the "Lay Out Shapes" menu item. It can have some interesting results, but it might help if you play around with it.
yes it is possible.
Check out this
You can import your database into visio and it will create diagrams from it..