I'm sure the feature request list would be better for this, but since I
still haven't subscribed to that one yet...

TogetherJ comes in a free version that may do what you want. For Ariadna,
what I think would make more sense than some kind of UML-like thing is a
more functional Hierarchy view.

The version I'm thinking of would start at Object, but would not include any
classes in the classpath that were not directly referenced as being
implemented or extended by classes in the project. Those non-project classes
would show up in a dark grey instead of black as well.

Having all classes in the classpath in there would be nice but might take
too much memory. Also, the view could load all classes when it's first
opened, but there are memory concerns there too.

So to sum up, pressing Ctrl+H would expand the tree to the class in the
editor (or possibly the one under the text cursor -- maybe that's
Ctrl+Shift+H). Selecting a class would show its hierarchy from Object on
down expanded. Selecting an interface would show it's inheritance chain (if
any) and all implementors in a separate pane/tab/section from the overall
Hierarchy view.

What do you think?


~Mike

----- Original Message -----
From: "Christian Sell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2002 6:38 AM
Subject: [Eap-list] feature request - project class view


> Hello,
>
> I just happened to use IDEA for a type of task I initially assumed it
would be well suited for, but came to realize it was by far was not as good
at as I had hoped.
>
> The task was to understand a pre-existing project with a reasonably
complicated class hierarchy. I had before me a bunch of classes, spread over
several packages, of whom I wanted to quickly understand which of them were
part of inheritance hierarchies, and which implemented interfaces internal
or external to the project.
>
> I found that the only tool IDEA offered which seemed to be useful for this
task was the Hierarchy view - but it turned out that my initial suspicion,
which I had when I first heard about it, was true - the Hierarchy view is of
rather limited use, as it only shows the hierachy of one class, and you
cannot have several Hierarchies open at the same time. Right now, all I can
do is click through every individual class and try to somehow remember the
dependencies.
>
> My suggestion is to consider whether it would make sense to add some
"high-level analysis" features to IDEA instead of further extending its
"low-level coding" intelligence (maybe both ;-)). What I really would have
needed is a class diagram which showed the dependencies and relationships of
ALL classes in my project at one glance (or two) - be it as UML icons or in
any other way. In fact I am considering to get me some external tool for
this (hopefully there is a free one), but I really think this should be part
of the IDE, as IDEA already has all the knowledge - it would just have to
present it visually..
>
> Hooray for a Project Class Diagram!!
>
> regards,
> Christian Sell



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