Note on class member

Feature Suggestions
1

Hello,

is it already possible to comment on members of a class, an interface or simmilar entities as shown in the attachment? This is a valuable feature, because it makes the diagram more precise.

Thank you and best regards,
Jan

note_on_class_member.jpg

2

Hi Jan

We do support display the description of model element on diagram via a Note shape (see https://knowhow.visual-paradigm.com/diagramming/display-model-description/ ). But the current build do not support displaying the description for class member via the Note. Our engineers had enhanced this in v14.1 which now user can attach a note to class member for display its description.

For v14.1 please update the software to latest patch build (20170720ak or later) to get this enhancement. Details about update to latest patch can be found at

  • Please make sure you have pressed the “Update to latest patch” button on the left hand side of the dialog right after launching the update program

Feel free to contact me if you require any further information and wish you have a good day!

Best regards,
Rain Wong

3

Hello Rain,

thank you for your answer! I upgraded to version 14.2. However I’m not able to produce a comment on a class member with a circle close to the class member as shown in my previous post. All I’m able to create is the following note without circle.
note_without_circle|413x118

Can you please help me?

Thank you and best regards,
Jan

4

To my knowledge you can’t create such specific rounded shapes in Visual Paradigm. That is, you probably can create such shapes manually but I don’t think there’s an option to instruct VP to change the way it displays the connectors.

This is just my 2 cents (obviously) but keep in mind that there isn’t really a “right” or “wrong” way to do this. Therefor my suggestion would be to change the position of your note elements; move them from right to left so that it becomes more obvious to which class element they refer to, something like this:

Class notes

In case you’re wondering: the note on the right isn’t really connected, but I added that to demonstrate that something similar can be set up, but it’s much more cumbersome to maintain. What I did was to add a note and then use the “Connector” option in the Freehand palette section (scroll all the way down). So it’s basically a static line; it looks good right now, but will become seriously bothersome if you have to change the location of the note element (then you’d also have to manually change the connector).

I hope this can help and/or give you some ideas.

5

Hello Peter,

thank you for your answer. Your work around solve my problem. It would be nice if there was a more scalable solution. I guess notes on class members are not seldom. I would like to make this feature request. Is there a place were I can hand in a feature request and see its status?

Thank you and best regards,
Jan

6

I’m happy to hear that this could help you, and I think there is indeed a better solution for this. Took me a little while to verify out because I don’t use class diagrams very often in my projects…

If you add comments to your attributes and operations then those will also be displayed in the description window (you can use control-shift-u to open this window, or click on the indicator in the lower right corner of the screen). This is a much better way to comment / describe these class entries because if you ever re-use your class in another diagram then these comments will also be used whereas a note has no direct association with your class, so you’d never see that appear somewhere else.

This is what I mean:

class_comment
class_comment800×572 32.3 KB

It may be a little more difficult to notice at first (especially if you don’t have the description window open) but it’ll be a lot more portable than a note.

Easiest way to set this up is to select an attribute or operation and then open its specification (press enter). In the ‘General’ tab you’ll find the option to enter a description.

These can also be specified when you add attributes or operations to a class.

Maybe food for thought?

Yes, create a new topic and then be sure to select the “Feature Suggestions” category (the drop down menu is right behind the topic title).

(edit): Sorry, I didn’t notice before but you already posted within this category, so I’m pretty sure the developers will have seen this.

7

Hello Peter,

thank you for the hint with the description window. This is handy. For printable diagrams I would be happy if the develovers considered my proposal. I saw the technique I suggest in the famous GoF book on design patterns (Originaltitel Design Patterns. Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software - Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson an John Vlissides).

Best regards,
Jan