How to Use Diagram Info Shape?
Diagram info shape is a table for displaying diagram information. Information like diagram name, description, project management properties can be displayed as rows of such table. Besides, you can add rows yourself and then enter whatever detail you like in the table. In this tutorial you will try to add a Diagram Info Shape into a Business Process Diagram to display its details.
Overview of this Tutorial
In this tutorial, you will learn how to use the Diagram Info Shape to display the description and Version (Project Management) of a Business Process Diagram (BPD).
To complete this tutorial, you must have Visual Paradigm installed and possess basic knowledge of modeling with Visual Paradigm.
Using the Diagram Info Shape
- Download Online-Shopping.vpp. You can also find this file at the bottom of this tutorial, under the Resources section.
- Open the downloaded project file in Visual Paradigm.
- Open the Business Process Diagram Online Shopping. You should see the class diagram below:
- Before adding a Diagram Info Shape to the diagram, let's quickly review what we have specified in this diagram. Right-click on the background of the diagram and select Open Specification... from the popup menu.
- In the General tab of the specification window, you can see the description entered.
- Open the Project Management tab. Some of the properties have been set.
- Click OK to return to the diagram.
- Let's use a Diagram Info Shape to display the diagram description and Version (Project Management) on the diagram. From the diagram toolbar, drag Diagram Info and drop it onto the diagram.
- The Diagram Info Shape is created with two rows: Name and Description. Move the Diagram Info Shape to the bottom right corner of the diagram.
- Let's add a row to the Diagram Info Shape. Right-click on the shape and select Add Item from the popup menu.
- Enter "Version" as the row name.
- Let's fill in the version number. Instead of hard-coding the version, you can retrieve it dynamically using a variable. Double-click on the adjacent cell and enter ${pmVersion}.
- Click on the background of the diagram to confirm editing. You can see "2.0" is shown:
List of Available Variables
Besides ${pmVersion}, here is a list of variables you can use in the Diagram Info Shape for showing the actual values of Project Management properties specified:
| Project Management Property | Variable |
|---|---|
| Iteration | ${pmIteration} |
| Phase | ${pmPhase} |
| Discipline | ${pmDiscipline} |
| Version | ${pmVersion} |
| Priority | ${pmPriority} |
| Status | ${pmStatus} |
| Difficulty | ${pmDifficulty} |
| Author | ${pmAuthor} |
| Create date time | ${pmCreateDateTime} |
| Last modified | ${pmLastModified} |
Here is a list of variables for retrieving general properties:
| Property | Variable |
|---|---|
| Name | ${nickname} |
| Description | ${description} |
| Teamwork Project Revision | ${teamworkRevision} |