Two UML tools

I have used dozens of UML tools over the years. I think it is best to use only two of them: Visual paradigam and magicdraw UML. As for the famous Rational Rose (Now IBM Rational Rose), it is the biggest and most difficult to use monster I have ever seen.

What is ease of use? In my experience, two conditions must be met: fast and beautiful.

1. Fast, that is, easy to use. Imagine that you have prepared a dozen class diagrams, Case relationships, and collaboration relationships before dancing your mouse, but once you sit in front of your computer, open your great modeling tool, but why can't I draw two squares (class diagrams) after I forget my ideas? Will this tool be used? Therefore, the first necessary feature of this modeling tool is fast;

2. Pretty. I'm afraid many of them disagree with this. When we use UML modeling, we first have to be pleasing to the eye for what we have drawn, isn't it? Don't draw a bunch of "precise" images, but it looks terrible. It's enough to hit people, hey.

Other functions, such as code generation, reverse engineering, and bidirectional synchronization, are not mentioned, because few of us use these complicated things, right. The following describes two tools:

Visual paradigm(VP)

As part of SDE, VP won the 15th jolt shock award. Where is this tool?

First of all, it is "fast". How fast can it be? Let's just say how fast your brain can work! Haha, my colleague once joked: Using VP, you will be able to draw a lot of UML diagrams in a moment. Let's take a look at how VP works (taking a class image as an example ):

Step 1: drag a class out of the Toolbox and place it in the work area, enter the class name, and then everything is done-joke, haha;

Step 2: place the mouse over the class you just placed. What do you see? Well, there is a quick link to the available link around this class, as shown in 1. All you have to do is drag these shortcuts with your mouse, then, perform operations similar to the first step on the newly generated object.

Let's talk about its "beautiful" -- in fact, my brother is very dissatisfied with the icon used by VP himself: What, all eyes are blue and the icon is very earthy. What I mean by "beautiful" is that we can use VP to draw a UML diagram that conforms to our own aesthetic. Let's take a look at the figure below:

Do you feel the world is beautiful?

Magicdraw UML(Magicdraw)

Magicdraw is a product of no magic Company (its name is a bit interesting). I have won many Productivity Awards in the jolt awards. I know 15th and 17. As mentioned above, Rose is a big monster. In fact, the size of magicdraw alone is not small, and its 12.0 version has as many installation files as MB. If it wasn't easy to use, I threw it into a different corner.

Where is magicdraw? First, it is faster. It is only a little slower than VP. Hey hey -- let's take a look at how magicdraw works (Taking image as an example ):

Step 1: drag a class from the toolbox and place it in the work area, and enter the class name-what do you see? The shortcut link similar to VP appears on the right of this class, so the operation in the second step is actually the same as that in VP, as shown in

This magicdraw only displays a shortcut link for the item with the current focus, and the shortcut link displayed as long as you move the mouse to the image in the VP-this is what I said, magicdraw is a little slower than VP.

Speaking of beauty, I think magicdraw is a little better than VP: I feel that there must be some coordination on the interface. As for the picture drawn, the two tools are similar. The entire diagram drawn by magicdraw is as follows:

Finally, let us know that both tools are available in the public edition and can be freely used. VP's official website is http://www.visual-paradigm.com, magicdraw's official website is http://www.magicdraw.com.

Additionally, the Community versions of the two software have the following restrictions:

1. VP community-in the same project, only one graph can be drawn, and advanced code generation and synchronization functions cannot be used;

2. magicdraw community-in the same project, except for the class chart, only 25 items can be drawn for each other.