"Narrowed" structural diagram

Question

Hello!

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.

Answer 1

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 developped 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. I found show hide documentation using the preference menu: http://www.forum-omondo.com/documentation_eclipseuml_2008/diagrams/classDiagram/propertyconcept/index.html

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 :-)