Hi! In the company i work we want to use more and more UML diagrams to design the programs we are making (C++ on Win32). For this we first used Micrographic FlowCharter. But this tool is realy not very usable for making UML diagrams. But because of the costs we can not buy other fullfeatured UML diagram software (e.g. Visio or RationalRose). So i had a look at OpenSource Software. I only found ArgoUML and dia (all other programs i found did not run on Win32). First we tried ArguUML (a java case tool). It has some nice features, but also some bugs (E.g. C++ parameters are stripped of and tried to convert into Java; After you�ve saved a statediagram, you can edit it, but not save the changes any more;...). Because of the bugs we can not really use it. Also it seems that the project is not maintained any more -- The last release was one year ago. After this i tried Dia and tried to do the following UML diagrams with it: - Classdiagrams: Cool! Dia is realy fullfeatured here (Even Templates!!). Fits our needs. - StateDiagrams: Not really nice to use yet. Problems are the arrow lines. Which line do you think should be used for the StateDiagrams? I did not find one in the UML symbols. Using the buildin lines is possible but very cirular. It�s because you can not write any text directly on the lines. You must use the text symbol to write texts. If you move the line, you have also to move the text manually :( -- It would be nice, if you have selected a line and just can start typing text for it. (Like it is possible with some other symbols/lines) Fits our needs, but not really fun to work. - LifeLine: Not usable at all. The problem is: On the "Bar" where you connect the incomming/outgoing message lines you only have 3 connection points on each side. This are to few connection points. Most lifeline diagrams need more then 3 connection points. I can send you a sample diagram, which demonstrates this, if you wish. The best solution would be here, that the connection points automaticly expand, if you make the "Bar" bigger. But as a saw dia is not able at the moment to support dynamic connection points. As a workaround you could just add e.g. 50 connection points to the bar and spread them when the bar gets bigger. Then it would be usable. But at the moment not usable at all. An other thing with the lines: There are very inflexible at the moment. - The lines don�t flow around symbols - The lines can not be modified "freeform". Here ArgoUML shows how this could be done, and how usefull it is. There you drag the ends of the line and move them(same as in dia). But you you can also drag all corners of the lines and move them. And if you start draging within the line, you can create a new corner on the fly. This is VERY usefull. I would suggest you to download ArguUML (http://www.argouml.org) and try it(create a classdiagram, put some classes on it and drag lines between them; Then start playing with the lines -- It�s really funny and usefull) I think dia will get a nice program in future. For classdiagrams it�s already very usefull. But at least the limitation with the connection points may cause you problems in future. cu, Emmy -- Sent through GMX FreeMail - http://www.gmx.net
