Drawing UML Diagrams with VioletER

Introduction

Violet is a simple, free, and attractive editor for UML diagrams. (Many editors are lacking in one or more of these qualities!) You'll be using an extended version I call VioletER which also supports ER diagrams - that's not important for this class, but those of you also in databases will be seeing Violet again.

Running VioletER

Type

/classes/f08/cs329/violet/run-violeter &

into your shell. You should get a splash screen, followed shortly by either a rather Windows-like display allowing you to select a drawing type or a recent file, or the editor window itself.

If you get the Windows-like display, choose an existing file you want to open or select "Class Diagram" to create a new UML class diagram.

Using VioletER

There's not much to using VioletER:

Click on the desired diagram tool (right side of the window).
Click in the drawing area to place a thing or click-and-drag from one thing to another to place a connecting arrow or line.
Right-click on the thing or line you've just placed to configure its options (including naming it, adding attributes or methods to a class, adding annotations to the line, etc).
Save when you are done (and periodically along the way in case something crashes).
Maybe print your diagram, too.

Using VioletER Outside the Lab

I've found Violet to be pretty much unusable when run over the network (i.e. displayed on a machine other than the one where it is running). If you want to use it on your own computer:

You'll need Java 6 update 10 installed on your computer. (Run java -version to see what version you have - it should be jdk1.6.0_10.) Earlier versions of Java 6 can be used to create and save diagrams, but you won't be able to print. (download Java 6)
Copy /classes/f08/cs329/violet/violeter.jar and /classes/f08/cs329/violet/run-violeter to your own computer (via scp - ask if you don't know how to do this).
Edit run-violeter, changing /classes/f08/cs329/jdk1.6.0_10/bin/java to the path of your Java 6 installation, and changing /classes/f08/cs329/violet/violeter.jar to the path of where you put violeter.jar.
Make run-violeter executable:
```
  chmod +x run-violeter
```
will do it if you are currently in the directory where you copied it.
Run run-violeter.

There may be occasional updates to VioletER. These updates shouldn't be important for this course, but an announcement will be posted if there's a new jar available.