Tricks for plug-in development.

How to retrieve model element in your project using Open API

tomcat-thumbVisual Paradigm’s Open API allow user to access the model data in your project in programmatic way by creating plugin. With Open API you can create new diagram or model elements to your project, also retrieve the diagram or model elements form your project and manipulate it. When dealing with model element there are 2 approach we can use to retrieve it from your project. In this article we will teach you how to obtain the model element via Open API. Read more

Creating document with Doc. Composer using Open API

The Doc. Composer allows you to create document for your model in a fully customized way. You can  customize the layout of your document by simply modifying the XML templates and specify what’s inside your document by drag & drop the templates into it, just like creating a diagram. But the drag & drop is a manual process, which you need to do it every time when you want to create a new document. Also after adding new contents, you will need to update it manually by adding the new elements into your existing document. In this article, we will show you how you can make use of the Open API to construct a document in a programmatic way, which can save you a lots of time. Read more

How to format the date property obtained from diagram or model element

Date is a very important property in model since it recorded the timestamp when a diagram or model element was being created or modified. In Visual Paradigm all diagrams and most of the model elements are having date property for storing its creation date time, as well as the last modified date time. In this article we will show you how to retrieve the date time property and format it into human readable text. Read more

How to highlight element on diagram using Open API

tomcat-thumbVisual Paradigm’s Open API not just provides a way to extend the functionality of Visual Paradigm, but also offer you a door to integrate Visual Paradigm with 3rd party software. The integration is not necessary to single direction, from model to 3rd party software, but also from your 3rd party software to models in your Visual Paradigm project. i.e. models being updated by external system. In this situation an indication on diagram could be very helpful to indicate what model elements being updated. Starting from v13.1 Visual Paradigm’s Open API support highlight diagram elements on your diagram. This can help you to indicate what element was being updated by your 3rd party software. In this article we will show you how to highlight the elements in your diagrams. Read more

Capture Application Events using Open API

tomcat-thumbOpen API is a powerful tool for developers to extend the functionality of Visual Paradigm software. It does not just allow you to have full access to the model data within your project, but also allow you to alter the behavior of the software. In this article, you will learn how to capture various events which has been fired during the execution of the software, and you can make use of these events to insert custom actions to achieve your goal. Read more

Debug your plugins with Eclipse

tomcat-thumbVisual Paradigm Open API provides an interface for developers to develop plugins and extend the functionalities of Visual Paradigm. Plugin development could be time consuming especially during debug phrase since you constantly need to deploy your plugin to Visual Paradigm, even just with slightly changes. Instead of deploy the plugin to VP every time after you made changes, you can directly launch VP with your plugin from Eclipse to perform debugging. This article teaches how to configure Eclipse to perform debugging on your plugins. Read more

How to retrieve use story scenario via Open API

tomcat-thumbIn requirement capturing use case is typically used to model the system goal where there user or stakeholder would like to achieve. Sometimes the use case could be very big and hard to manage. In agile development approach the use case would further break down into smaller pieces called user story. The user story is small and should be able to complete within a sprint so that the team can easily manage it and make progress to the development in consistent manner. Visual Paradigm support capture requirements with user stories, and within each user story user can define various execution scenarios that developers should be catered during development. The user story scenario is not just available to access within the VP’s interface, but also accessible from the Open API. In this article we will show you how to retrieve the scenario information using Open API. Read more

Manipulate the nickname of a diagram and model element using Open API

tomcat-thumbYou might need to create diagrams in multilingual for different team members around the globe. Instead of maintaining multiple set of diagrams of the same models for several languages, the nickname feature in Visual Paradigm enables you to define multiple languages for a single set of diagrams, allowing you to switch between different languages in just a matter of a few clicks. The nickname can be manipulated directly from the GUI, or through the use of the Open API. This article shows you how develop a plugin yourself by swapping the original name of the diagram and model element with the current selected nickname. Read more

Create Grid Diagram using Open API

tomcat-thumbVisual Paradigm allows you to create the Grid Diagram for listing model elements in tabular form, structuring them into a table with elements as rows and properties as columns. The Grid Diagram can either be manipulated directly from the GUI, or through the use of the Open API. This article shows you how to develop a plugin yourself for creating a grid diagram. Use case models will be used for creating the grid diagram in this example as following: Read more

How to Deploy Plugins to VP Products

tomcat-thumbOpen API is an extension mechanism provided by Visual Paradigm for extending the functionalities of the client software. The Open API is in Java based, which allows you to have full access to the model data in your project file. By using Open API, you can create your own plugin to implement some customized features.

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