MonoUML

DocBook generator

2007-12-18T17:22:00.000-08:00

MonoUML is now able to generate DocBook documents from your models. Even tough it's not complete, it is somewhat functional. Comments and feature requests are welcome.

Check it out from our SVN repository.

New versions of ExpertCoder and nUML

2007-12-09T05:48:00.000-08:00

I'm posting just to let you know there was a simultaneous release of both ExpertCoder (release 20071209) and nUML (release 0.5). These are the versions needed to build MonoUML from SVN.

Japanized version

2006-01-07T04:21:00.000-08:00

We received the Japanese translation of MonoUML from the well reputed Mono hacker Atsushi Eno.

He also posted a screenshot, for those of us who love eyecandy.

New wiki-based site

2005-10-17T12:37:00.000-07:00

Now we are using our website as a wiki-based one. You can always ask for an account for adding or updating the information.

A new reveng.exe

2005-09-24T06:52:00.000-07:00

The last couple of week I've been working on making the reverse engineering tool able to merge the model obtained from the input assemblies with the model loaded in MonoUML. Even though the changes are in place, some bugs were introduced and remain to be fixed.

This changes require the latest version of ExpertCoder from CVS.

Having this new "merging" feature, together with the previously introduced feature that allows to maintain one model in several files, it's possible to do this:

Open MonoUML, create a new project, add a Package called System, save the project as "system.xmi".
Create another new project, add a Package called ExpertCoder, save it as "ec.xmi".
Create yet another new project, go to Project -> Add external model domain. Select the file "system.xmi". Repeat the process to add "ec.xmi".
Go to Tools -> Reverse Engineering, and process "reveng.exe". Save the project as "reveng.xmi". You should get something like this:
Now comes the magic: open the file "system.xmi". Surprise! it has been filled with the elements from the System namespace that are referenced from reveng.exe.

You can use this feature to organize your project documentation in several files, and reuse a common set of type definitions, profiles or libraries.

You may also take a look at the new command line tool, reveng.exe:

$ mono reveng.exe -h
MonoUML.ReverseEngineering  0.1.2091.36132 - (C) 2005 Mario Carrión, Rodolfo Campero
Reverse Engineering tool - from .NET assemblies to UML.

Usage: reveng [options]
Options:
  -a -assembly:PARAM  Input assemblies (dll | exe)
  -F -full            Perform full import
  -? -help            Show this help list
     -help2           Show an additional help list
  -I -include:PARAM   Include existing model. It's allowed to reference several models
  -o -output:PARAM    Output file (xmi). If the output file exists, its contents will be merged with the results
  -p -private         Import private members
  -r -protected       Import protected members
  -q -quiet           Quiet mode
     -usage           Show usage syntax and exit
  -V -version         Display version and licensing information

In order to build this tool, run "make reveng" in the directory src/ReverseEngineering.

By the way, thanks to the Mono hackers for Mono.GetOptions - very handy, indeed.

MonoUml AddIn for MD mockup

2005-09-06T08:19:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking on how to integrate MonoUML into MD. Today I decided to try several ways.

We need a MonoUML Pad, so extending from MonoDevelop.Gui.Widgets.TreeView (MonoDevelop) and MonoUML.Widgets.IView (MonoUML) is all we need to do. We also need to launch the monouml engine (the Hub class) as a service (MonoDevelop AbstractService), attach our TreeView to it (and register it into the Hub to know when raise events).

Monodevelop hack

The same file with monouml

New ubuntu built, now for Ubuntu Breeze Users

2005-09-04T14:07:00.000-07:00

Hi!! today I built MonoUML and ExpertCoder current. In this version the desktop icon bug is fixed. To try it, just add:
deb http://people.hazent.com/~jrp/ubuntu breezy hazent
to your /etc/apt/sources.list
Enjoy it!!

New Ubuntu Hoary Packages

2005-08-06T21:20:00.000-07:00

Jose Ramon Palanco has packaged MonoUML for Ubuntu Hoary, for more information read his blog.

Interesting new features

2005-06-03T15:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I added two new features to MonoUML, which I think are very useful when you are trying to understand a library: showing the generalizations and the specializations of a classifier in a diagram.

Let's say you are trying to understand the way actions work in MonoUML. An action is something that can be performed on a diagram or on a diagram element; you can get a list of the actions available for a given element just right-clicking over it.

Lets continue with the example. The first thing we do is to reverse engineer the library MonoUML.Widgets.dll; then, using the options in the menu we create an empty class diagram, and then we drop the class ActionBase:

Using the right click we get an option that shows all the specializations of the current classifier:

The derived classes appear in the diagram. After reorganizing the diagram and repeating the process for the newly added classes, we obtain all the derived classes:

I think this is a neat feature, and hope you enjoy using it. As soon as I get some spare time I'll implement a similar feature to show all the implemented interfaces and all the classes that implement a given interface.

MonoUML v0.1a. Codename: monalisa.

2005-05-29T04:37:00.000-07:00

I'm glad to announce our first release, our first alpha version, 0.1a, codename monalisa. You can get it from our Novell Forge files page.

If you find any bug or want some feature report it to our bugzilla, all the help is appreciated.

For any comments, suggestions or something else use our mailing lists :)

Happy hacking!

Huge steps towards the first release

2005-05-25T19:39:00.000-07:00

As today, May 25, is a non-working day in Argentina, I thought it was a nice day to update ExpertCoder's documentation. However, I thought it was a cool idea to hack a bit on MonoUML first.

Needless to say, I spent the whole day coding and fixing bugs, which is a good thing because we're soon releasing a first alpha version. MonoUML is so addictive!

I fixed bugs #7 and #11, and maybe others. But the best is that now we're able to delete an element from the model and also from the diagram only - and yes, the diagram reflect those changes ;).

Ubuntu breezy packages

2005-05-07T07:31:00.000-07:00

Just add the following line in your sources.list

deb http://people.hazent.com/~jrp/ubuntu breezy hazent

then

# apt-get update && apt-get install monouml

Enjoy MonoUML! :P

planet.monouml.org

2005-05-05T20:27:00.000-07:00

Now you can access to this planet through http://planet.monouml.org Nice isn't it?

Design changes in uml-canvas-sharp and Cairo experimentation

2005-04-16T20:44:00.000-07:00

These days I have been working on the new versión of UMLCanvas, the graph engine for MonoUML. There are some interesting changes in design and architecture of this new version. One of them is the use of is the use of abstract shapes in clases used in node control, for example ControlShapeGroup. Due to this it is very easy to change aspect of control point or a control frame, here is an example:

Because new design is more flexible, it is posible to make nodes with a different kind of control points (such as circles). This example tooks me less than 10 minutes to finish.

I am also doing some experiments with Cairo, the library for vector graphics which is the base for the System.Drawing implementation in Mono. Eventually, I think, Cairo must be used in UML Canvas, because, apearently Gnome Canvas will be deprecated. The problem with Cairo is the few documentantion avalible, and the lack of a GtkCairo binding for Mono. Though, I think we should start working with Cairo, it is the future for vector graphics.

Here is a screenshot from my experiments:

Performance improvements in ExpertCoder

2005-04-14T18:13:00.000-07:00

Finally, I uploaded the promised changes to EC. If everything works as I think (and measured), you can expect to save around 2/3 of the memory we were consuming on regular usage. You will also notice a huge speed boost both when deserializing and serializing models - a couple of orders of magnitude in some cases.

Please, let me know about your experience.

Sources moved to ForgeNovell

2005-04-13T20:06:00.000-07:00

After a quick survey we've decided to move our source code to ForgeNovell, the project is here. Have a nice hacking!

BTW. Reverse Engineering is almost finished, there are missing only two things: Events and Delegates. I'll finish as soon as possible :)

Deleting all references to an element

2005-04-02T13:40:00.000-08:00

In my last post I said that EC had to be modified in order to allow deleting all the references to a given Element. This feature is ready, at least for the packages Kernel and UseCases.

Now is really easy to remove all the references to a given element: just call DeleteAllReferencesTo on the root-level elements of your model, and you're done.

Personal short-term roadmap

2005-04-01T13:51:00.000-08:00

MonoUML is almost usable by now. We can create a model and add some diagrams, and the use cases-related functionality is mostly there: we can add actors, use cases, associations between actors and use cases, includes and extends... but we can't delete anything.

This is mainly due to ExpertCoder's UML 2 library is missing that feature, because originally it was meant to be used as a component of code generators. Code generators need to read models, not write them, so this feature is lacking.

I mean, of course you can remove a Class from a Package if you want to, but that won't delete the class; that would merely avoid the Class to be serialized within the Package as one of its owned types. Furthermore, if there's some other references to said Class, for example if the Class is the type of a Parameter or a Property, those references won't be set to null automatically.

But this is the nature of Software Libre (FOSS), projects must adapt to changing requirements, and that's what ExpertCoder will do.

So, this is my task for the time being: to modify ExpertCoder's UML 2 library in order to make it able to delete all the references to a given element.

MonoUML Snapshots

2005-03-31T17:42:00.000-08:00

Want to test MonoUML whitout using CVS? Try here. For developer see uploadSnapshot under cvsroot for knowing how to uploading snapshots.

Now we can create diagrams

2005-03-30T18:12:00.000-08:00

This is a short notice, 'cause I'm going to sleep.

The latest version of MonoUML in CVS is now able to create diagrams, and new elements created within the diagrams are placed under the diagram's namespace.

Please, take some time to test this features, as I hadn't enough time to test it in detail.

There's a feature that I'd like to have: exporting diagrams as PNGs. If someone is willing to implement it, leave a message in the mailing list so we don't duplicate work.

make dist

2005-03-21T21:05:00.000-08:00

Finally after one day of work I've ported the old Makefile style to the automake style, I enjoyed doing that, I've had a lot of fun :P Now, just type: 'make dist' after typing './configure' and you'll have a nice monouml tarball, nice isn't it? :) (There are missing, make install and make run).

I'm still solving the awful memory-eater-bug, I've added some fixes and the memory usage had decreased while loading, but there are still some issues while reloading XMIs... anyway, We'll fix it!

I haven't finished the Reverse Engineering module, I'll try to finish it sooner, I want to test it whithin MonoUML, I'm thinking about adding a nice ProgressBar while importing... :P however, I need to improve the library's performance as much as I could, to reduce processing-time is my goal.

I need to define some details about the project's file, I mean, file-format, we'll obvious use XML for settings, something like Poseidon format: a set of files compressed as project file, as Rodolfo said, but... what will we save? will we use separated XMIs? If so, ExpertCoder needs improvement for handling multiple XMI files... Things to think.

Welcome to our Planet!

2005-03-20T13:01:00.000-08:00

This is our Planet, here we'll post the most recent changes in the MonoUML Project. Feel free to contribute!