In the past I was using Rational Rose, and now I'm trying to switch to Visio. But many things that I could easily find in Rose, I can't or have hard time finding it in Visio (2013 Preview).
I have looked at the available diagram possibilities (when creating a new file) but I could not decide what to choose, what would be the best for making Activity Diagrams.
Please tell me.
What would be the best choice? How should I start?
For activity diagrams, Click on More Shapes, then on Software and Databases, in Softare category, choose UML Activity.
Related
I have a workflow diagram that I've been modifying a lot and as a result it's suffered in clarity. It's formed of several objects representing states joined by arrows and connectors.
I was wondering is there an automatic way to create a diagrams from a 'net list' of the connections that need to be made? Or is there a standard way to create a logical diagram like this without overlapping connectors/unnecessary complexity?
Creating a visual representation of a "net list" is often referred to as "graph layout". There are many tools which allow you to do this. Visio is a bit limited here (it supports basic automatic layout for "orgchart" diagrams out of the box though).
Note that Visio also provides re-layout options for the already-existing drawing (you can find them under "Design" tab, "Re-layout page"). These allow one to change the layout of the current diagram. Maybe that's what you are looking for.
Similar question about automatic layout here:
How to generate MS Visio diagram automatically?
I am using Microsoft Visio 2010.
I am drawing a UML sequence diagram.
I added object Lifeline and started drawing diagram. Because the diagram is very long, at one point there would not be any more connectors to connect the arrows to. See this picture:
I understand that probably it is not good idea to put so many processes on one diagram, but it seems to me to be the best way to describe the whole process. And I only need a bit more space to continue the diagram!
So, how to configure the lifeline to have more connectors?
You can read how to add more connection points at "Add, move, or delete connection points". This will allow you add connection points for the propose of creating the diagram however I don't know if this is sufficient for the UML model to know the source and destination of messages. This may be an issue if you are exporting the UML model to code or another tool.
Is it possible to somehow organize my diagrams in Enterprise Architect? We're starting having too many of them, with each diagram containing many elements. Is creating a separate folder for each diagram the only solution to make the model easier to see through, or is there a more elegant layout for that?
In the first place, Model Views will help you to create distinct viewpoints representing your entities from different perspectives.
If you stick to the architecture principles of loose coupling and modularity, you should be able to split up very big diagrams into smaller ones. After all, their role is to give you an idea of how things are coupled and work together, but also to abstract from things that are not really relevant in the given context of the diagram. Diagrams are not meant to just visualize all elements in one big picture.
You can create package structures that are pretty complex and then use the model search. You can also put hyperlink elements for easier navigation between diagrams.
If you have to split up elements into different diagrams (which then go into different packages) EA will preserve their relationships and you can review them at any time using the traceability view.
I would also have a look at the EA options for composite diagrams. This should help you re-organise a Single System into a number of Composite Sub-Systems.
To start modeling an application architecture, you can use a perspective based approach or a view modeling perspectives approach to describe your system. For example use the 4+1 view based approach to collect your Logical, Development, NonFunctional and Requirements perspective. Organize it according the mentioned dimmensions or decompose each dimmension by the application modules and have a conceptual view to have a global view of your system.
To start with a model of an enteprise architecture use for example the togaf dimensions or zachman framework layers and dimmensions
You can use several packages to categorize your content.
I use to make a package diagram on top level which dynamically updates its contents depending on underlying packages (simply drag & drop the packages in the package diagram)
and the content (e.g. for activity diagrams) like entry or final can be saved in a common package.
Unfortunately there is no possibility yet (version 10 build 1004) to customize the packages e.g. with colors. So that a common packages could have a distinct color.
What I do to make Project Browser more organized is to create one package named "Diagram's elements" and drag all the diagram element there.
There's some good advice in this blog on the Sparx Systems (the EA publisher) website.
I'm a total rookie in UML and modelling. I'm learning some framework, and I'm trying to grasp and outline its key aspects. I've decided to do it with UML. But the problem is, the whole structural diagram of the framework is of no use to me, because classes have a lot of properties and methods, and there's a lot of classes.
What I need is a series of structural diagrams, each of which shows some specific aspect of the framework. And the classes involved should display only those attributes/operations that are of certain value to this specific aspect.
Does UML (as a standard) supports this on some level, and is there some tool that allows to do just that? I've tried Visio 2007 and Enterprise Architect, but I didn't found out the way to do what I need.
Thanks in advance.
What your are looking for seems to be able to customize views of your model and not to visualize the full class diagram. This concept is developed by Omondo which provides customizable views of your model by drag and drop. You can create as many views as needed, each could be different from the others while just using the same model element. This also the metamodeling approach for me where the model is not the diagram but the metamodel on which your build your graphical model.
If you don't need attributes/methods then you can try to click directly on attributes and methods keeping the ctrl button pressed, then you should be able to find a menu in the class diagram to hide them. The traditional menu is Hide from diagram.
This is what I do and it works really well.
You can also just click directly on attributes and methods but I don't see any documentation on this subject. It seems that nobody knows except the developer and myself about this option but this is my favorite one :-)
I have to create a UML activity diagrams for a searching application for a semantic database.
Easy to guess, users can search and select a file, but they can also browse and refine the retrieved results by clicking the categories the results belong to. They can even select a file just by browsing without actually entering any keyword.
Should I create one single 'large' activity diagram showing the different possible workflows or a series of smaller ones, such as "perform a search", "browse the collection" or "select a file"?
I think, what you have mentioned is more likely to be a sequence diagram ("perform a search", "browse the collection" or "select a file"), and I would recommend you to have several sequence diagrams that you listed. My argument for this is: these diagrams are consumed by testers at design stage, so they can write tests for it.
And the major activities you can put into overall activity diagram, that will show the possibilities of what user can do at a given step/stage (if I can logged in, I can perform a search, browse the collection, etc).
Personally I would create a large UML providing an "over-view" of functions that are provided by your application. I would then create smaller more detailed UML diagrams so that the application's functions can be studied in detail.
Hope that helps with your decision.
Regards,
Mike.
Edit: I find Microsoft Visio particularly useful in which to create the UML diagrams too.