UML modeling and visual editing

You can develop your project from the top down through Unified Modeling Language (UML) analysis and design models. In addition, you can visualize your code with dynamically generated topic diagrams as well as manually created class diagrams.

Note: Capabilities such as visual editing and language transformations are not offered in Rational® Software Modeler.

Rational Software Architect introduces a group of integrated capabilities loosely referred to as visual editing. If you are familiar with model-driven development (MDD), you can think of the visual editing capabilities as platform modeling with UML class and sequence diagrams. If you are very code specific, look at visual editing as a way to get UML class and sequence diagram views of the artifacts and elements in the development workspace.

With these tools, you can develop projects using your existing workflow and leverage UML to:

Visualize code
Document code
Construct and maintain code

One of the first issues you may consider when using Rational Software Architect for the first time is, "When should I use strict UML modeling as opposed to visual editing?" With Rational Software Architect, you can still create UML analysis and design models to model use cases, develop architecture, and design your project. If you liked the way model architecture was reflected in the code with the help of round-trip engineering (RTE), you will appreciate the visual editing capabilities in Rational Software Architect. Rational Software Architect provides a bridge between model-driven development (MDD) and code-centric software engineering.

While you may recall that the Rose Browser has one UML space divided into use case, implementation logical, and deployment views, Rational Software Architect has two UML spaces: one for pure UML visual modeling and the other for code-centric visual editing. UML models and diagrams open in the Project Explorer view no longer have the code-generation abilities as in RTE. Instead, source code is visualized at your command with automatically formatted diagrams through visual editing. Changes you make to visual editing diagrams become a part of the code instantly; RTE commands are no longer required.

However, your UML models need not be passive design views of the system. Transformations, discussed further in online help, enable you to get more code from pure UML models in a customizable way.

Here are a few of the key benefits of visual editing:

Do more, at every skill level, with higher quality. You can create visualizations that abstract many of the code details to simplify the understanding of code structure and behavior. Content in the diagrams is configurable so that you can define your own context. Visual editing automates the expansion of the diagrams and serves to facilitate the discovery of an application. Topic and browse diagrams take diagramming one step further by automating the creation and layout of predefined diagram types. So, you can better understand code and assess the impact of change.
Automate the documentation of code. You can copy and paste diagram images into documents, such as Microsoft Word. To obtain detailed reports, you can publish diagrams and code into a Portable Document Format (PDF) report that can be archived or distributed for review.
Collaborate more effectively with team members working on code from complex systems. Visual editing enables the publishing of diagrams and code to HTML. Diagrams can be linked to Java™ code documentation.
Automate and simplify repetitive coding tasks. Visual editing includes support for creating classes, attributes or fields, methods, and relationships in the diagram (excluding topic diagrams).

With the ease of adoption and use of Rational Software Architect, additional members of the software development community can benefit from UML modeling and visual editing. Members of the community that value a bottom-up or code-first approach to software development will appreciate the lowered threshold for use of modeling capabilities.

Once you realize the value and productivity gains that can be derived from visual editing, you can look toward using the same UML modeling tools relied upon by architects and designers to specify new designs: patterns, code generation, and MDD.

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