uml

Who uses a digital notepad for saving UML and other diagrams?

I often find that for an initial design document, I just want to lob in a couple of rough UML / other diagrams. Most diagramming tools, even Visio, slow me down considerably. I admit that this is probably PEBCAK. I usually end up drawing a sketch, and then running it through a scanner. I was wondering who uses a digital notepad, and ...

What alternatives exist to UML to graphically represent software models

Excluding UML, What other formal methodologies exist to visually represent software models? Do you know any tools that allow you to work with them? ...

If you don't design in UML, then what do you design in?

I was taught to draw diagrams in UML to see the interactions between classes, objects, and participants/the system and so on. However, I've seen several answers here stating the UML is a documentation tool and not a design tool. How do you depict designs graphically if you don't use UML? ...

Can a Sequence Diagram realistically capture your logic in the same depth as code?

I use UML Sequence Diagrams all the time, and am familiar with the UML2 notation. But I only ever use them to capture the essence of what I intend to do. In other words the diagram always exists at a level of abstraction above the actual code. Every time I use them to try and describe exactly what I intend to do I end up using so much h...

Do you design/sketch/draw a development solution first and then develop it? If so how?

I work a lot with decision makers looking to use technology better in their businesses. I have found that a picture is worth a thousand words and prototyping a system in a diagram of some sorts always lends a lot to a discussion. I have used Visio, UML (somewhat), Mind Maps, Flow Charts and Mocked Up WinForms to start the vision for th...

What tools/diagrams do you use for modelling multithreaded systems?

I'm sitting there every time I model my systems, thinking, there must be a better way to model concurrency than using UML activity diagrams. Please share your thoughts. What's your favourite tool or format for modelling and getting a clear understanding of how to build a concurrent system? ...

Help for Domain Model in UML

Hi, I would like to ask if it is possible to show Generalization relationship in UML for a Domain Model although I undertstand I can do that in a Class Digram? I did not see much examples of Domain Model displying Generalization Relationship except in Class Diagram. If not possible, what is the best way to display that an Entity in a D...

Best Free Professional Looking UML Tool?

I like the look of the Visual Studio Class Designers, but it doesn't give me the flexibility of designing before I implement the code. Also, I'd like to show interfaces, inheritance, and aggregation lines between classes and properties as well. I am on the lookout for a free tool to help me diagram some of the projects that I do on th...

Visual Basic Project Code to UML diagram tool

Hi all, I have been given the task of converting an old VB6 program to C#. Unfortunately the project has 8 modules, lots of code in each and tons of nested IF statements and just plan horrible design. I am hoping to find a tool that would take all the files and generate some sort of UML diagram to show the basic flow of code to allow ...

Would you show things an Actor cannot do on a Use Case diagram?

On a Use Case diagram can you show things that an actor cannot do, for example because they won't have permissions to do it? Or is it just implied due to the fact that they won't have a line joining them to the particular use case? ...

Rendering UML diagrams from text files

Is there any good tool or tool-chain that allows UML images in the .svg format to be created from a textual source file? The reason for this question is that I want to automate the generation of these images to avoid having to manually create and update this set of images. ...

What tools do you design software with?

Years ago, I used to use Rational Rose. It was big and bulky, and I only used a subset of the features, but it got the job done. Lately (last few years or so), I've just been sitting down with sheets of plain white paper and a pencil. I usually break out a UML cheat sheet and just iterate over the problem. What tools do people use today...

Domain Modeling or class diagram for car dealership

I am trying to draw a domain model or class diagram in UML for car dealership. I am stuck with how to present test drive in the model. One way is to have appointment class and then test-drive as sub class. A dealer also offers after-sale vehicle service so i could have appointment/booking class as super class and then vehicle service an...

How do I validate the class diagram for a given domain?

I am working on car dealership business domain model/UML class diagram. I am new to modeling, so I would like to know how to validate the class diagram. It's very important for me to have an appropriate, if not 100 percent correct, class diagram to use further development (use cases, etc.). Is it possible to build a completely incorrec...

How to automate the generation of HTML output in Enterprise Architect

Enterprise Architect has a way to generate the documentation in HTML/RTF/etc. that you could publish, but you have to use its GUI to do that manually. When you have your *.eap files in a CVS/Subversion server, it would be useful to have a script that would check out daily the latest version and publish it in a web server. As long as I kn...

How to best visualize a "permission Matrix" in an UML class diagram?

For the sake of simplicity: There is a permission based system in place with different kinds of user levels and actions (think: UNIX file system permissions) What would be the best approach to visualize this in UML? ...

Visio & UML - Showing pointers in attributes and return values

I have the requirement of generating UML Diagrams for one of my C++ assignments. I'm using Visio 2007 and I'm having trouble representing C++ pointers. I've found a way to add a suffix to Datatypes however it's rather time consuming to do this for every pointer used or returned in my program. Basically I'm trying to get -object1 : Obje...

Visio & UML - Showing vectors

I have the requirement of generating UML Diagrams for one of my C++ assignments. I'm using Visio 2007 and I'm having trouble representing C++ vectors. The only way I can see this working is creating a custom C++ datatype or creating a vector class in my project, then for each instance of a vector in the UML, I need to dig into the proper...

UML : Internal class in a class diagram

In a class diagram, is there a way of specifying that a class is an internal class of another class ? Or is it considered as a pure implementation choice ? ...

UML standards guide / Best Practices

Does anyone know of a decent UML standards guide? My company currently relies on UML 2.0 (rightly or wrongly) to do the majority (read all) of their design work. I have been asked to come up with a draft 'best practice' guide to help other developers develop better models. The main problem I face is that Im slightly biased against UML.....