Hi Arjan,
ArgoUML development team knows that the sequence diagram is one of the
weak points in the tool and as been working in a replacement. Our
current release plan targets this to be integrated into ArgoUML 0.28:
http://argouml.tigris.org/release_plan.html
We sincerely want it to be better than the current, but, you'll have to
understand that we're all doing this on our free time or as part of
Google Summer of Code projects.
I placed several hints in the email I sent in reply. Have you tried
those? The increase of vertical space between one message and other
subsequent messages is possible...
Regards,
Luis Sergio Oliveira
M4N - Arjan Tijms wrote:
Luis Sergio Oliveira wrote:
Which lifeline do you say has disappeared? (See attached screen shot
of ArgoUML0.26 with your project open and zoomed out:
test-large-lifeline-zoomed-out-screen-shot.png.) There are several
which are big, but, this is not so annoying.
Well, basically those of A, C, F and H. The others start with a dashed
line, while for A, C, F and H the function (call) scope starts
immediately. They are also much, much larger than those which do start
(and end) with a dashed line.
In the context of this diagram I wouldn't use it for anything. For
horizontally placing the Classifier Roles, simply select and move
left and right.
Horizontally placing of the classifier roles indeed works without any
problems. In a class diagram, moving a class in any direction also
works. It's just that in a sequence diagram nothing can be moved
vertically. This is really extremely frustrating. In a sequence
diagram, vertical ordering isn't just something to make the diagram
look good, but it communicates a meaning. In my case, there's no point
in having Y higher than X. The entire reason why I was drawing the
diagram is to be able to communicate to my fellow team mates that Y
happens after X.
I like the class diagram that ArgoUML offers. It's simple and
straightforward. The sequence diagram however is extremely frustrating
to use. I spend about 10 minutes sketching the diagram on paper, but
after 6 hours(!) of literally fighting with ArgoUML, I still did not
had the diagram in it. Eventually I resorted to the UML2 editor in
Eclipse 3.4 (ganymede, also provided as part of MyEclipse 7.0 M2).
Although this is an incubation project, everything seems to work. I
can move down calls extremely easily: just grap them with my mouse and
move them down. Exactly as I would intuitively expect. I can also
resize call scopes with the greatest ease. Again, just grabbing it at
the corner and move the mouse up or down. If I want to make extra
calls from one lifeline to an another, the tool lets me. In ArgoUML
this is never the case. If there is enough room in a given call scope,
I can add an extra call. But if there isn't, I'm out of luck. ArgoUML
doesn't allow the extra call and since it also doesn't allow me to
extend the call scope or move an existing one down I'm stuck. Yes, I
can create some space by moving the entire diagram down, but if I just
want to add an extra call between two life lines, I only want the
vertical space to apply to those two life lines and not to the 10
others I have.
Basically, after 6 hours of working with ArgoUML it seems that you
really have to know exactly what the diagram is going to look like in
advance. As soon as you want to change anything later, the tool
doesn't let you and the only solution seems to be deleting a bunch of
stuff and redoing it. I don't want to sound too negative, since I know
you worked very hard on this for 10 years. Like I said, the class
diagram works intuitively, but the sequence diagram has been a major
pain to use for me.
Kind regards,
Arjan
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