[Uml-devel] Suggestions

[Jonathan Riddell]

Thanks for all that, I've put your suggestions in our TODO file and
hopefully they'll be fintered through to the tracker at some point.

I'm commenting only on the few that need it.

> - the "operations" page in the "concept" properties is very confusing -
>   there should be "add", "edit" and "remove" buttons as is usual for a
>   well-behaved editable list; this applies to other locations as well;
>   the context menu is too obscure for new users

Is this a problems with the buttons that have been recently added or a
problem that there are no buttons (which is no longer the case)?

> - abstract class names should use italic font

They are, n'est pas?

> - can't delete control points for association lines (+)

Double click on them, same as creating them.

> - Object diagrams are not possible with the current "concept" and
>   "association" tools; object and assoc names are underlined, and
>   the class name may optionally be specified for objects

They are, make sure you're using a concept diagram.

> - "concept" boxes should have separation lines optional if the
>   operations or attributes sections are empty (+)

You can choose to show or not the operations and attributes (right click
option or in properties)

> - static attributes/operations in classes (underlined)

That's newly in.

> - derived attibutes and associations (name preceded by a "/")

Don't think I've ever heard of those, I should look into it.

> - in-place editing of labels would be cool - doubleclick and edit in-place

Anyone know if this might be possible?  I suspect it would be very
difficult with a QCanvasItem.

> - crash: load the attached .xmi file, grab the class, drag it around a
>   while, be sure to move the mouse outside of the umbrello window;
>   sometimes "only" the associations are messed up, sometimes it crashes
>   with a SIGFPE; the backtrace doesn't show anything useful

That's a nasty one, I managed to re-create it but only the once.  Will
look into.

> Btw, I am pondering a python code generator module. Looks easy enough to write
> one, so I think I will write it when I first use it for programming (as
> opposed to learning/homework). How reusable is the class parser code? Is it
> possible to plug in other languages for import?

The class parser (code import) isn't really an extendable framework, it's
just nicked form KDevelop.  That's to be fixed.

The code generator (export) is extendable and new languages should be
fairly easy, infact it's mostly copy and paste from another code generator
as far as I can tell (hmm).  It's well documented (because Luis' a star)
in the code.  Currently exporting code will overwrite anything that's
already there, something that's to be looked at.

Jonathan Riddell