Add Functions You Like

Want to describe your model element with attributes beyond the defaults? Simply add custom properties by using tagged values. Let's say you are working with an actor called "employee" in a UML use case diagram. You could add a tag called "Work Hours Per Week" of integer type and assign "40" to it, as an example. To centralize these tag definitions for reuse, you can group them under a stereotype which you can add to a model element afterwards.

Plug-in support (Java)

• Improved plugin support

  The Open-API now supports adding diagram category as well as the button group and buttons in it. Besides, you can now define default tagged values for custom elements created by a plug-in, as well as to present the tagged values in the body of these custom shapes.

Visual Paradigm plug-in provides an extendable platform for developers to add functions to Visual Paradigm for UML. Developer can reference to the plug-in development guide to build their own plug-in to read, create, update and delete diagrams and model elements. Developer can use Java to develop plug-in. The following screenshots outline the steps to create plug-in for Visual Paradigm for UML.

Plug-in support (Java)

Step 1 of 5: Develop the plugin

Setup the environment for developing plugin and start developing the plugin. You need to first include the openapi.jar to the build path, which can be found under the lib folder of VP Suite installation directory. You may read the User's Guide to learn about how to develop plugin.

Step 2 of 5: Prepare the plugin configuration file

Create a file, name it as plugin.xml and place at the root of plugin. You need to fill in this file to provide information such as classpath, toolbar/menubar configuration, etc.

Step 3 of 5: Deploy the plugin

Create a folder "plugins" under the VP Suite installation directory. Copy the developed plugin to that folder.

Step 4 of 5: Using the plugin

Start the tool. If the implementation and configuration are both correct, you should be able to run the plugin.

Step 5 of 5: Using the plugin (Cont.)

With plugin, you may iterate the project data to perform operations such as create, read, remove and update of project data.

Sample plugin

Tutorial

• VP-UML Plug-in Development

User's Guide

• Introduction to plugin support
• Implementing plugin

Know-how

• Reload your plugin without restart the application

You may want to hide away some diagram types, menu items or toolbar items to avoid your team creating wrong types of model. Visual Paradigm for UML supports customization of User Interface (UI) objects by XML. The following screenshots outline the steps to customize the tool.

Tool customization

Step 1 of 4: Open the Customize UI dialog box

Select Help > Customize UI... from the main menu.

Step 2 of 4: Select the UI components to hide

Select the menus, toolbars and popup menus to hide.

Step 3 of 4: Hide them

Click > to hide the selected components.

Step 4 of 4: Continue modeling

Restart the application and continue modeling. You will find that the chosen components are hidden.

Tutorial

• Customizing Visual Paradigm for UML by XML

User's Guide

• Hiding user interface components