Lollipop Notation

General Questions/Discussions
1

How do you attach lollipops to classes in a class diagram?

I can’t seem to find anything that will enable me to draw the lollipop or its complement the fork.

Please help, I’m currently using the “Realization Arrow” but I’m not looking to indicate a realization, I need to indicate how the class should be utilized (through the lollipop).

Any info is much appreciated.

2

Hi Kwan.Cheng,

Thanks for your post. We are sorry that currently we do not support lollipops for classes. Could you provide some samples that need lollipops? Thanks in advance!

Best regards,
Lilian Wong

3

A situation where a lollipop would be useful are in class diagrams that I want to indicate a particular class implementing an interface, but I don’t necessarily want to include the whole class rectangle stereotyped interface.

In all the UML 2 books that I read, this can be accomplished with the lollipop on a class diagram, but I was not able to find it in VP-UML.

However I found the lollipop notation available in the component diagram. So I’m using the component diagram as class diagrams currently. Which is working out fine.

[quote=LilianWong]Hi Kwan.Cheng,

Thanks for your post. We are sorry that currently we do not support lollipops for classes. Could you provide some samples that need lollipops? Thanks in advance!

Best regards,
Lilian Wong[/quote]

4

Hi Kwan.Cheng,

Thanks for replying and your kind suggestion. We’ll consider about this issue and I’ll keep you informed for any relevant news.

You are always welcome for any other suggestions or inquiries!

Best regards,
Lilian Wong

5

Hi Kwan.Cheng,

In the Class Diagram, we have an alternative presentation for the interface - right-click on the interface and select Presentation Options > Interface Ball in the popup menu (you can refer to the image below).

Is it what you are looking for?

Best regards,
Lilian Wong

interface_ball.png739×459 40 KB

interface_ball.png

6

Hello

I come back to this thread because I was also looking for the complete “lollipop” notation and did not find it in VP UML.

It is not the visualisation of an interface as a ball but a notation to indicate that a given classifier (class, package, component …) implement (lollipop) or required (elided lollipop) an interface.
you can see sample of both here http://www.agilemodeling.com/style/interface.htm (hand draw diagrams named “Figure 1. The internals of the seminar component.” for instance, you have another example here http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rational/library/dec04/bell/).

It is VERY VERY useful to express that a given class implements or require a given interface without cluttering the diagram with useless arrows to the interface definition proper.

If I have an an interface IRenderable implemented by various and non inheritance related classes drawing lines from the interface to the classes clutter the diagram very fast with no value.

Maybe it is implemented now in VP UML 9.0 but I was not able to find it in the product nor in the documentation.

Product was perfect till now :wink:

Thanks a lot for your time.