[Uml-devel] Re: Thoughts on Umbrello 1.3

[Oliver Kellogg]

Hi,

A while ago, Jonathan wrote a message in the KDE developer's
journal, http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/view/318.

Now that we're moving closer to the release, I think it makes sense
to have another look at them.

> I hesitate to mention associations because I'm not honestly sure what the
> current status is with them (same with packages). I suspect more work
> may be needed to clean them up, probably showing the associations
> of a class/whatever in the list view. You should be able to see a list of
> all the associations when you look at the class properties, currently you
> can only see the associations on the current diagram.

Packages should be all fine now. Please report any problems you may
have, I'm interested in getting them functioning reliably.

Associations are still a wound spot. I don't see when I will have the time
to implement the list view representation that you mention above.
The same goes for states and activities, which should be given a
representation in the model. Help is much appreciated.

> We may also have to turn off fancy code generation by default, I haven't
> tried Umbrello with large diagrams recently but
> http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=72644 Large (Huge?) memory leak
> indicates that it may be taking up more memory than is fair.

Yes, code generation is still a problem.
At least we now can turn off undo/redo in the "Configure Umbrello" menu
which should already save significant memory.

> When you create an item on the canvas the dialogue should give you the
> option of using an existing class/interface/whatever and list the packages
> it could go in.

I'm not quite sure I understand. Do you mean the popup should list
the available classifiers when creating attributes or operations?

> Code import for more languages features in bugs.kde.org [...]

I'm afraid that too will not make it into 1.3.
At least the C++ code import is now synced up with kdevelop.

> [...] but it may be best to tidy up the code generators we do have.
> For example why does the C++ code generator not add a variable
> for a unidirectional association?
>
> The refactoring agent probably needs some work to make it more
> user friendly.
>
> Adding What's This help would be good.

How about making a bugs.kde.org entries for these?

> I like the icons we have in the toolbar, they're clean, simple and
useable.
> The ones with English text in them should be changed though. Icons for
> diagrams can't be too hard (significant widget for that diagram type,
> make them coloured, add a border to indicate canvas).

Well, Zoltan B has done some work on the icons - does that cover your
ideas?

> I lost track of the printing which never got the work we hoped for.

Same here: Do we have a bugs.kde.org entry for this?

> If we could get SVG export of course that would be excellent.

Yeah. Still in the realm of dreams unfortunately :)

> Class diagrams should allow Objects in them (apparently, says the
> UML spec). This allows for object diagrams (which are just class
> diagrams without the classes).
>
> Automatic tests as suggested in http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70256
> would be useful.
>
> Better error messages on a failed paste and file open are something I've
> wanted for a while.
>
> The oft-requested KDevelop integration is probably a long way off.
> It would be nice if done properly but is probably too much work.

Yes, it doesn't sound like something two or three hackers can do
in their spare time.

> Standards compliance with XMI is happening now which is great.

I hope to get the changes necessary for making the save format
of stereotypes and templates conform to the XMI standard into
umbrello in time for the 1.3 release. Of course there is still work left,
for example supporting multiplicities and tagged values in an XMI
standard conforming way, but that's not doable in the 1.3 timeframe.

> Eventually we may need to look at UML 2 but probably not for this release.
>
> Those are the issues on my mind today but there's plenty of other entries
> marked 'Umbrello' in bugs.kde.org and Seb reported that valgrind gave
> 30,000 errors when Umbrello was run over it so if anyone is looking for
> a way to begin a KDE programming career this is your opportunity!

I'm totally with you here. We are actually in desperate need of more help.
For one, I myself am far from being able to do the task justice in the
little
spare time that I have. -- Speaking of spare time, I'm on vacation
throughout the coming week.

Till after,
-- Oliver