[Publication] Article in French Programmez Magazine on Visual Studio 2010 and UML Modeling

You can find an article of 4 pages concerning Visual Studio 2010 and UML Modeling in the French Programmez magazine No.135 written by me, Guillaume Rouchon and Loic Baumann.

First Page (low resolution)

Second and Third Page (low resolution)

Fourth Page (low resolution)

The article is written in French but as always I will write some English articles on my Blog in the next weeks. So stay tuned if you are interested in knowing how to use Visual Studio 2010 for UML Modeling.

[Publication] Article in French Programmez Magazine on Visual Studio 2010 and UML Modeling

[VS 2010] Visualization & Modeling Feature Pack for VS 2010

Microsoft has released its first Visualization & Modeling Feature Pack for Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. It adds new functionality to Visual Studio 2010 and is completely free for MSDN Subscribers. The new UML features really help and are indispensible in your daily work when modeling and working with code at the same time.

Feature Pack Content

Increased Visualization Support

• Visualization of native C++ code
• Visualization of WAP / Web Sites / ASP.NET MVC code

Increased UML support

• Source Code Generation from UML Class diagrams
• UML Class Diagram Generation from Source Code
• Architecture Explorer can finally be used to populate the Modeling Store in Modeling Projects (we waited for that!)
• XMI 2.1 Import of UML Class / Sequence / Use Case elements
• Create and view links from Work Items to model elements

Increased support for Layer Diagram Extensibility

• Creation and validation of Layer Diagrams for C and C++ native code
• Possibility to write custom code to create, modify, and validate Layer Diagrams.

MSDN Download Link

You can download it from here (MSDN Subscribers only):
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/vstudio/ff655021.aspx

[VS 2010] Visualization & Modeling Feature Pack for VS 2010

[VS 2010 - UML] Sequence Diagram Code Generation is not possible

In Visual Studio 2010 it will not be possible to create a new UML Sequence Diagram from scratch and then generate code from it. Sequence Diagrams will only be used for representation and modeling purposes.

The Sequence Diagram generation is a one-way operation. Meaning that even if you generated a Sequence Diagram from existing code and changed it you will not have the possibility to generate the code that reflects your changes. You will have to do it manually at the moment.

Furthermore there is not possibility to activate debugging in Sequence Diagram mode, which would be a very handy feature for the future.

[VS 2010 - UML] Sequence Diagram Code Generation is not possible

[VS 2010 - UML] UML Model and Architecture Diagrams Viewer

Creation and modification of UML models and Architecture Diagrams will only be possible from within Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. But developers will be able to open them in Viewer mode from within all other versions of Visual Studio 2010.

[VS 2010 - UML] UML Model and Architecture Diagrams Viewer

[Event] Microsoft Model Driven Days

Just a little reminder that this years “Microsoft Model Driven Days” will be Thursday 26/11/2009. This is a very interesting event on UML, MDA, SOA and similar subjects. A must for architects and developers that are interested by modeling. I will be attending and will be looking forward to see new faces.

The event is free of charge! So if you have the time register yourself(!) and come to the event. 

You can get further information on http://www.mdday.fr/.

[Event] Microsoft Model Driven Days

[UML] OMG-Certified UML Professional Fundamental Exam (OMG-OCUP-100) Preparation Slides

The following slides greatly help for the preparation of the OMG-OCUP-100: OMG-Certified UML Professional Fundamental Exam. They contain all necessary information for passing the certification and can be used in combination with the certification guide.

Uml Omg Fundamental Certification 1

Uml Omg Fundamental Certification 2

Uml Omg Fundamental Certification 3

Omg Fundamental Certification 4

Uml Omg Fundamental Certification 5

[UML] OMG-Certified UML Professional Fundamental Exam (OMG-OCUP-100) Preparation Slides

[Tutorial] UML with Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Beta 2

As an Architect you get to use UML quite often in your daily work. A good diagram can say much more than text and – if well done - is easy understandable and shareable amongst team members and the management.

Microsoft announced some time ago that it endorses UML and that it set a core focus on modeling. It therefore announced its membership in the standards body Object Management Group™ (OMG™).



The next version of Visual Studio will include a quite sophisticated set of tools and features for UML Modeling and its associated Code Generation.

I recently installed Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Beta 2 in a Hyper-V Virtual Machine to test these new UML features. The following steps are necessary to use them.

• Create a new project of type “Modeling Project”

• This will create the basic structure for the UML Models

• There are 7 diagram choices currently possible in the Beta 2 release, Add a “UML Class Diagram”

• The Toolbox is now filled with elements that are useful for the creation of classes and class relationships

• Add some elements and design your classes

• Add a “UML Sequence Diagram”, the Toolbox is now filled with elements that are useful for the creation of interactions

• Add some elements and design your interactions

• Add a “UML Use Case Diagram”, the Toolbox is now filled with elements that are useful for the creation of use cases

• Add some elements and design your use cases (note that it is not possible to declare extension points in the Beta 2 release at the moment)

• Add a “UML Activity Diagram”, the Toolbox is now filled with elements that are useful for the creation of actions

• Add some elements and design your actions (note that there are sometimes little display problems, especially when using decision nodes and input pins)

• Add a “UML Component Diagram”, the Toolbox is now filled with elements that are useful for the creation of components and component relationships

• Add some elements and design your components (note that Delegations and Part Assemblies don’t work in the Beta 2 release)

• The “Layer Diagram” and “Directed Graph Document” are no UML Diagrams, so I won’t discuss them in this article

• You can use the new UML Model Explorer to see all elements for all diagrams in one place

[Tutorial] UML with Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Beta 2

[Tutorial] Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 How to export UML Diagrams into Image Files

I recently used Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 to create UML diagrams, which by the way is already working great. Then I wanted to export the diagrams into an image format to include them into specification documents, but there are no direct image exporting functionalities as of today (hopefully they will be added into the final release).

The following steps will allow you to export UML diagrams in the image format of your choice.

There are currently 2 ways of getting images from UML diagrams:

• If the copy functionality is working, then you may copy and paste them directly from Visual Studio 2010 into your documents, but when you get the following error it won’t work

• Use the integrated XPS printer to create an XPS file, then convert the file into the desired image format by using an external Freeware tool like for example “Converter for XPS Documents 1.0”

[Tutorial] Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1
How to export UML Diagrams into Image Files