How to Annotate UML Shapes?
Callouts are a useful way to provide additional information about a shape or shapes on a diagram. They are specifically designed for annotation purposes and allow you to add viewable notes to your diagram. However, this can also create problems if certain parties are not supposed to view these notes. For example, if you add a callout to a business process diagram to request a renaming of a business task, you may want to hide this callout from stakeholders who do not need to see it. In this tutorial, we will share a tip on how to easily hide callout shapes on a diagram so that they are not visible in your printouts or when viewed by certain parties.
Creating an Annotation Layer
In this tutorial, we will show you how to use the annotation layer to add and hide annotations in a UML activity diagram.
- Download Activity-Diagram-Example.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 UML Activity Diagram named Place Order. You should see the activity diagram below:
- Select View > Layers... from the main toolbar.
- In the Diagram Layers window that appears, click the
icon at the top of the window to create a new layer. - Enter Annotation as the name for the new layer.
- Click Close to confirm your changes and return to the diagram.
- The new "Annotation" layer is now the active layer, meaning any new shapes you create will be placed on this layer. Let's create a callout. Select Callout from the diagram toolbar.
- Click anywhere on the diagram and enter Check Payment is not needed as the content for the callout.
- Position the callout's pointer so that it points to the Check Payment action.
Hiding the Annotation Layer
By organizing shapes into layers, you can easily control their visibility. This is useful when you need to share a diagram with different audiences. For example, you can export a version of the diagram without annotations for external stakeholders, while keeping an internal version that includes your notes. To hide a layer:
- Re-open the Diagram Layers window.
-
Uncheck the box in the Visible column for the Annotation layer.
The callout will now be hidden in the diagram.