Improve modeling of UML activity diagrams

Feature Suggestions
,
1

I have some suggestions how the activity diagrams modeling could be improved.

Automatically add activity to an activity diagram

  • When an activity diagram is created automatically add an activity

Highlight valid and invalid operations

  • When the user tries to add a component to another one where the operation is invalid, the target component boundaries should be highlighted (in red for example) instead of just displaying an icon
  • When the user tries to add a component to another one which is a valid operation, the target component boundaries shall be highlighted (in green for example) showing that the operation is a valid one

Autocomplete for types

  • When adding a new activity parameter node the user shall be able to enter the type of the node directly during the input. A solution for this might be the following: when he enters the name (like myParameter) entering a colon character (:slight_smile: he could start typing the type (like Integer) and an auto suggestion box shall help him in this

Automatic input pin generation

There should be an option that enables automatic creation of pins in certain cases. One is when the user draws an object flow into an action, a pin with a correct type shall be created automatically.

Support for complete UML 2.5 standard

The current activity diagram only partially supports UML 2.5 standard, for example the type “return” is not chooseable for an activity parameter node.

Easier way of routing a control of object flow
As I user a rarely want to have diagonal lines in control flows or object flows, but horizontal or vertical lines. The way I can model a route on a diagram is very cumbersome compared to for example the way I can do in MagicDraw.

Automatically add expansion node to expansion region
As a User in most of the cases when I need an expansion region I also need an expansion node. It shall be added either automatically, or shall be configurable.

Automatically label the circles for splitted flows
There is a function in he software enabling splitting flows. However, it does not automatically fills the circles with a default name (like the next letter from the ABC) but it requires user interaction.

2

Some additional ideas:

Improved object flow

Allow creating an object flow without pins, but automatically create pins.

Horizontal and vertical forks and joins
Have separate icons for vertical and horizontal forks and joins so the user can spare one additional clicks.

Ability to add forks, joins and decisions on edges

Instead of adding a fork, join or decision to the model then manually detaching the edges, it would be nice to add them directly to an edge. The software could add where it would put, but that’s it.

Display multiplicity for pins
They are not displayed. Also a simple combobox for selecting (0,1,0…1,*, whatever) would be nice.

3

Hi Zsolt,

Thank you for your valuable suggestions. I have forwarded your post to our team for further feasibility studies. When there is any news, I will let you know.

Best regards,
Jick Yeung

4

Hello,

Is there any progress in the features I wrote above? My biggest pain point is the missing ability to set multiplicity for an input or output pin in an activity diagram. This is especially sad that based on the OMG documentation a pin is a multiplicity element so I should be able to do that. Can you ask the team a status of this? Thank you!

5

Hi Zsolt,

We will be supporting multiplicity on pins in the next version. The remaining items are still pending to be reviewed.

Best regards,
Jick Yeung