Learning Eclipse MDT-UML2 Sequence Diagrams

Question

Are there any tutorials or documentation files for drawing Sequence Diagrams with Eclipse MDT-UML2?

I can't put a Lifeline on the page. It took me 10 minutes to figure out that I first have to make a big Iteraction, and then I can put Lifelines into it.

I can't figure out how to make the Participant box wider in the lifeline. Any name more than 4 characters is too wide for the box. When I do the obvious thing of clicking and dragging the handles, the box springs back to its original size.

I can add a Message by clicking "Message" in the pallette and click-dragging an arrow from line Lifeline to another. Now I have an arrow labeled "1: *". I've tried every way I can think of to change that name: double-clicking on it, shift-clicking, ctrl-clicking, changing Name in the properties.

Can anyone help?

Answer 1

As I understand it MDT-UML2 is in the very early stages, it may not work as it should always. Additionally, the sequence diagram is a newer one, see below. There were no tutorial I could find, but I did link to samples below. I also found a comment in the eclipse bug tracker for this feature:

Here are the most important issues from my side: moving of lifelines, create messages, replies are causing strange behaviour (some kind of auto alignment). Moreover it should be possible to give the messages names.

They say it is resolved, but you be the judge.

From the wiki (Note:What you want is UML2 Tools): http://wiki.eclipse.org/MDT-UML2Tools

Interaction diagrams (in progress): Sequence (new in Galileo)

This may not help, but here is a link to the samples: http://wiki.eclipse.org/images/3/3a/UML2Tools_samples.psf

The tutorial reference does not seem to cover the new stuff, just the class diagram. http://www.vogella.de/articles/UML/article.html

Search stackoverflow for other open source tools to use. The MDT-UML2 is coming along and can be used for some stuff, especially simple DSMs/DSLs/UML Profiles, but for drawing easily there are a host of good tools. An ok thread: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15376/whats-the-best-uml-diagramming-tool or http://stackoverflow.com/questions/390438/good-free-uml-tool-for-java-eclipse