Quantum Leaps

UMLet Free UML Tool for Fast UML Diagrams

One of the main goals of Quantum Leaps is to provide a lightweight alternative to heavyweight and expensive design automation tools. Such tools typically come with a drawing package to create various diagrams. In fact, most of the tools, if they are used at all, end up as overpriced drawing packages. To this end, a good drawing program does as much for you as a fancy CASE tool.

One excellent example of such a simple drawing tool is UMLet. It is an open-source UML tool with a simple user interface: draw UML diagrams fast, export diagrams to eps, pdf, jpg, svg, and clipboard, share diagrams using Eclipse, and create new, custom UML elements. UMLet runs stand-alone or as Eclipse plug-in on Windows, OS X and Linux.

UMLet lets you sketch a surprisingly good looking diagram in a minute. The minimalist text-based property editor and the intuitive way of copying shapes from the palette are tremendous time savers, as you can pre-arrange and pre-fill various palettes to fit exactly the way you use the diagrams. The customizability does not stop here, though, as you can also add your own custom shapes with custom properties and programmable behavior. UMLet lets you work almost as fast as a whiteboard, which is ideal for group design reviews and brainstorming sessions with a laptop and a projector. A very agile tool.

UMLet download

Download sample UML state diagrams (0.02MB)

More UMLet screenshots

Visio Stencils

Visio™ (now Microsoft Visio™) is a powerful such drawing program that should satisfy even the most sophisticated drawing needs. You can find literally thousands of Visio™ templates and stencils online. A few examples of good Visio™ resources are:

• Pavel Hruby offers Visio Stencil and Template for UML 2.0 for various versions of Microsoft Visio™.

• Allen Holub offers Visio™ stencils as well as UML Quick Reference in his goody bag.

• Visio Cafe lists a lot of resources and links related to Visio™.

• Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) program website has whole section devoted to Visio™.

According to the Quantum Leaps' philosophy, the Visio™ stencil that we offer is minimal, simple, and practical. It is an improved version of the stencil used to generate all diagrams in the book Practical UML Statecharts in C/C++. You can download the stencil by clicking on the following links:

Microsoft Visio™2003 UML Stencil (0.1MB)

Visio™ Technical 5.X UML Stencil (0.9MB)

The stencil contains all the shapes necessary to create the most important UML diagrams: Static-model diagrams, State diagrams, and Sequence diagrams. A few shapes in this stencil (Class, Object, State, Inheritance tree) are hacked-up versions of standard Visio™ shapes. Some other shapes have their origin from Navision Software's UML website (now available from Pavel Hruby's page).

Here is a short description of the shapes in the Quantum Leaps stencil:

Shape	Description
	Note By default, the note has one sticking out pointer that you can attach to any object. If you don't want to point to anything, just drag the pointer back to the center of the note. Also, you can use more than one pointer. Just drag as many pointers as you need from the center of the note. The "Quick UML Reference" below provides many examples of using this shape.
	Note (with ball) This note has a "ball" at the end of the pointer, which is useful to attach, for example, snippets of code. You can find an example of this in the "Quick UML Reference" below (top-middle class diagram).
	State This state shape is specifically designed for drawing hierarchical states. For example, the main compartment of the shape has no fill to avoid obscuring of the grid and allow easy manipulation of the shapes nested inside. Please note that you can extend the name compartment to the bottom of the shape by dragging all the way down the handle of the name-compartment division line. Some new users have difficulty adding text to the internal-transition compartment. Perhaps the best way to activate this compartment is to first click anywhere on the state to activate the whole shape, and then to click on one of the side lines of the internal transition compartment. As always in Visio, press F2 to start editing the text.
	Transition This transition shape aligns itself neatly horizontally or vertically with up to two rounded angles between begin and end. You can arrange the horizontal and vertical segments by dragging the handles. The transition has an opaque label that you can also position by dragging on the label-handle.
	Initial Transition The initial transition is just like the regular one, except the beginning point is a black ball.
	Final State The shape has four connection points (up, down, left, right) for incoming transitions.
	Junction The shape has four connection points (up, down, left, right) for incoming or outgoing transitions.
	Dynamic Choice The shape has four connection points (up, down, left, right) for incoming or outgoing transitions.
	Label (opaque) Text with white opaque rectangular background to label anything. The shape has two handles: the reference handle, and the text handle. The relative position of these handles can be changed by selecting the text (F2) and changing text justification (left, center, right).
	Label (transparent) Transparent text to label anything. The shape has two handles: the reference handle, and the text handle. The relative position of these handles can be changed by selecting the text (F2) and changing text justification (left, center, right).
	Class Class shape with name compartment and resizable attribute and method compartments. The size of compartments can be changed by dragging the handles on the compartment division lines. Dragging the lines all the way to the bottom of the shape changes the number of compartments (and you can create more than three compartments).
	Object Just like the Class shape, except that the name is underlined.
	Generalization Tree Allows to build generalization trees with up to 6 branches, which you drag out of the center of the shape.
	Association (inheritance, agregation, ...) This shape has a right-click popup menu to select inheritance, aggregation, composition, and navigability (bidirectional or unidirectional). The shape has also one opaque label that can be useful for denoting cardinality at one end. You can position the label arbitrarily (with the label-handle) relative to the shape.
	Angled Association Just like the Association shape, except the shape aligns itself always horizontally or vertically with up to two corners between the beginning and the end.
	Design Pattern Similar to the Note shape. You can drag out pointers from the center of the shape. Please see example in the "Quick UML Reference" below (bottom-right class diagram)
	Package
	Component
	Node

Quick UML Reference

The "Quick UML Reference" has been created with the Visio™ UML Stencil described above. You can download the reference, both in Visio™ and in PDF formats, by clicking on the links below:

Quick UML Reference 2003 (1.7MB)

Quick UML Reference in PDF (0.1MB)

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