How to upgrade Visual Paradigm (With Single Seat License) to New Version

tomcat-thumbFrom time to time, Visual Paradigm releases new version which covers bunch of new features and enhancements. Thanks to the maintenance contract system, you can upgrade to new version without extra cost as long as your license is covered with maintenance contract. This article will teach you how to upgrade your single seat license of  Visual Paradigm to new version.

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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

Downgrade your evaluation version of Visual Paradigm to Community Edition

tomcat-thumbVisual Paradigm Community Edition is a FREE CASE tool for you to create professional-look UML diagrams. Visual Paradigm Community Edition not just supports UML but also SysML as well as ERD. You can easily switch from free Community Edition to higher edition for 30 days free evaluation and to try out the advanced features. You can always switch the evaluation software back to Community Edition in few clicks. In this article we will show you how to switch the evaluation software back to Community Edition. Read more

How do I Know Which Shape in a Diagram Has Description Entered

For every model element, there is a description property that allows you to describe detailed information about individual element, so that readers can understand the intended use, intended behavior and other important information. For example, specific implementation guideline can be written in a UML class or class diagram, and precautions can be written in a BPMN task in a business process diagram.

Sometimes, we may not have the information we need to enter in the description at the time the model element is being created. We may leave it first and enter it later on. But then the problem comes: After several days or weeks, how do I remember which shapes in a diagram has description missing? To check shape-by-shape is time-consuming…

In this article, we will show you how to indicate in diagram shapes that has description entered. This allows you to concentrate on shapes that have no description entered. Besides, it allows readers to check and read the description of shapes only when description has been entered which makes the diagram more legible.

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How to Paste Text to Description Editor without Rich Text Format

When you copy and paste formatted text into a description editor in Visual Paradigm, it automatically brings along the formatting properties. This sounds reasonable and is quite a nice behavior if you really want to keep the style of text contents. However, there are several reasons why you might not want to keep the formatting. First, when you copy from web page, it may bring along crappy HTML contents, say the hidden table borders and layers. In fact, when CSS is widely used in most of the modern websites, what you copy from a webpage is not necessarily what you can get when pasting without the existence of the CSS. Second, you may not want to mix up the style of text in your description with the source. Third, although the crappy formatting properties may look invisible in the description editor, they may affect the content in generated documentations. After all, to clear those formatting tags is time consuming and error prone.

Account for the reasons above, it would be nice to have certain ways to paste text without including formatting properties, which means, to paste as plain text. In Visual Paradigm, the “Paste without formatting” function is provided to serve this purpose.

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How to Find and Remove Unused Models in Your Project

As your project grows, it is inevitable to have more and more orphans model elements left in your project. Such model elements are not visualized in any diagrams and are not useful anymore. This article will show you how to locate those elements so that you can remove them from your project. Read more

How to Find Text in Description

The find feature allows you to search for specific words or sentences within text in the description editor. Finding starts from the beginning of the description, regardless of the position of text cursor. The first occurrence of text that matches with the entered search text will be highlighted. You can move to the next occurrence by clicking on the Next button. You can perform finding in all the RTF description editors, such as the description editor in specification window.
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Importing models through Excel file

It’s always a nightmare when you need to transform your models from one format into another one, especially when you need to migrate to a new paradigm, i.e. convert your textual and tabular form data into a graphical presentation. Instead of re-creating all your model elements, you can transform your data into an Excel file, and import it to Visual Paradigm and visualize it as a diagram. To do this:

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How to Add Diagram Link into Description

When you are documenting your model, you may come across the situation where you want to make a reference to certain diagram in the project to help you explain an idea or to give reader supplementary information they may find useful. For example, you may want to add into the description of a class, a note to tell the developers that if they want to know more about the state change of the class, refer to certain state machine diagram. While the reference feature allows you to establish formal and contractual reference between model elements and diagrams, the reference function you can find within the description editor enables you to add diagram link into any part within a description, casually and informally. Such a diagram shortcut enables reader to jump from description to a diagram, which makes navigation much easier.

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How to Define Sequence for your ID Generator in ERD

coverIn relational database, records are identified by a unique value. We call this value the primary key. Some databases allow to control how this unique value is being generated by defining the sequence. In this article, we will show you how to model the sequence with Visual Paradigm and use as the ID Generator for your database tables.

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