Managing sequence diagrams

You can use Unified Modeling Language (UML) sequence diagrams to create a graphical representation of the source elements in a system or application to understand and develop behaviors and interactions between classes and data types.

About this task

You can create new sequence diagrams, populate existing sequence diagrams with source elements, and add lifelines, messages, and combined fragments to sequence diagrams.
  • Setting preferences for sequence and communication diagrams
    You can set several default preferences for sequence and communication diagrams. For example, you can specify the appearance of lifelines, messages, and execution occurrences that are displayed in sequence and communication diagrams when you create them.
  • Creating sequence diagrams from existing diagram elements
    You can create sequence diagrams in the typical way that you create any UML diagram, or you can create them from existing elements in your project. You can create a sequence diagram either within a model, which also creates a collaboration and interaction, or as a standalone diagram, which becomes a DNX file.
  • Populating sequence diagrams
    You can create sequence diagrams and populate them with elements to understand and develop behaviors and interactions between objects in systems. You can add lifelines to represent objects or actors, messages to represent communication between the objects, and combined fragments to represent the control structures.
  • Organizing sequence diagrams
    You can organize sequence diagrams to better represent a system. You can reorder messages, delay asynchronous messages, as well as manage combined fragments and lifelines.
  • Deleting messages from sequence diagrams
    You can delete messages from your project that you no longer need. When you delete a message, you have different results depending on the type of message that you delete.
  • Deleting lifelines from UML diagrams
    You can delete lifelines from UML diagrams, such as sequence or communication diagrams, to remove an object from an interaction. When you delete a lifeline, all send and receive messages that originate from the deleted lifeline are also deleted. When you delete a lifeline from a sequence diagram, all interaction fragments that cover the lifeline are deleted, but the combined fragments and interaction uses that cover other lifelines are not.
  • Example of a sequence diagram
    The following example shows a sequence diagram taken from the PiggyBank sample that is available in the Samples Gallery, which describes the DisplayBalance use case from an online banking scenario.
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