For those of us who are "Windows-challenged", being Mac users, there are few alternatives to Microsoft's Visio. Two very good open-source applications are StarUML and ArgoUML. The former, however, is not available for the Mac. Too bad. For you Windows users looking for UML depiction that is superior to Visio, I encourage you to check it out because it actually is a pretty good tool.
For those of you who are Enterprise-minded (e.g., you have the budget or you need Visio-compatibility) you may want to check out ConceptDraw. I haven't used it, but it appears to be more fully featured than ArgoUML and therefore very similar to Visio, which is targeted to a larger audience than just those interested in UML.
I've used ArgoUML for 2 hours now to create Class Diagrams. I have only experienced a couple of annoyances so far but those were not deal killers given the (did I say free?) price.
First, annotation tools are too basic. If there is a way to create a generic arrow (as opposed to an Association) I couldn't find it. With a growing trend towards MVC you'd think there would be a way to incorporate visual elements into a Class Diagram. For example, you can't insert a picture (screenshot, icon, etc.)
Second, there is no copy/paste functionality... for anything! If you have 5 similar Operations, forget about copying, pasting, and editing the differences. You have to create each one. This is most annoying with annotations.
I am very impressed with the software, I'm using Conceptdraw Pro and Mindmap, as these will help me when I start my new position. I'm using it for process flows and their new rapid draw and rapid UML feature enables to draw an impressive chart in a seconds.
ReplyDeleteConceptDraw have its Live objects technology for creating visual dynamically updated dashboards. Not free, but that's usually how it goes for good programs.