Why there are “a” and “M” icon showing in my shapes?
Sometimes you may notices that the elements on diagram having a small “a” and “M” icon showing on its top left corner. What does this mean?
“a” and “M” indicator on diagram
How to highlight element on diagram using Open API
Visual 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
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
Accessing Model Hierarchy Recursively
When working with a nested model, you may want to access and printout the details of elements within a hierarchy recursively. Since the level of model can be unlimited, it is hard to write a custom element template with a chunk of code repeated a certain number of time, not to mention this way of coding will make the template messy and hard to maintain. To solve this problem you can form a recursive template call by applying the concept of template referencing. If you are a programmer, the idea is exactly the same as a recursive method call in programming. All you need to do is to add the element in the appropriate place in the template, to instruct the template engine to process the same template, forming a self-loop. We will walk you through the details in this article.
How to override operations form superclass
Method overriding is a very common technique in object-oriented programming. It allows developer deliver specific implementation of a method in the subclass although it already defined by the superclass. When overriding a method the subclass replace the implementation in superclass by providing a method which exactly same as the one in superclass, i.e same name, parameter and also the return type. In Visual Paradigm you don’t need to redefine the operation in subclass to model the override. You can simply do it in one click inside the specification dialog. To override the operation: Read more
Reuse Constraint Parameters in SysML Parametric Diagram
The Parametric Diagram in SysML is a restricted form of the Internal Block Diagram. It shows the mathematical relationships between its modeled elements. Wish Parametric Diagram you can precisely define the details of a constraint in your system. The Parametric Diagram cannot live on its own, it must be relay on a SysML block, typically is a constraint block. In Visual Paradigm you won’t need to re-create the constraint parameters when you elaborate the constraint block with Parametric Diagram. In this article we will show you how you can reuse the constraint parameters when modeling in Parametric Diagram. Read more
Building Document with Custom Templates
Although Doc. Composer comes with a complete set of built-in element templates, you may still want to customize or even to write your own templates for maximizing the efficiency of document design. You can accomplish this by writing and programming your own element templates.
Launch Visual Paradigm with Specific Diagram Opened
You can open a specific diagram of a Visual Paradigm project through Command Prompt. It would be especially helpful when you need to open one of various diagrams from a project.
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
Integrate Content into Word Documents with Doc. Composer
If you want to insert project details (e.g. images, element details) into an existing Word document, use Doc. Composer’s ‘Fill-in Doc’ mode.
Doc. Composer features two modes – Build from Scratch and Fill-in Doc. Typically, a project documentation or report is a combination of background information like project goal, scope and constraints, and design details like use case details, database design, process design, etc. The Fill-in Doc mode of Doc. Composer is designed to help you “fill-in” the design details of your documentation.
