There’s something very important you have to consider if you plan to use a UML editor. What will be your frequency of use? Humm... We could suppose that you will not spend your time making diagrams. Thus, if you have to re-learn how to use your editor before creating a new diagram each time you start it, it will not be very efficient.
So, Violet has been developed to be very intuitive and esay to use. In fact, Violet is the acronym of Very Intuitive Object Layout Editing Tool.
Flexible launch
Run Violet as you want it! Violet could be started as :
-
a single application,
-
an applet,
-
via Java Web Start,
-
an Eclipse plugin
Editor features
-
can open multiple documents
-
supports direct links between diagrams
-
nice drawing with automatic grid snap
-
zoom in / zoom out
-
undo / redo
- cut/copy/paste
-
multiple diagram elements select and drag’n drop
-
supports diagram tool change with mouse scroll button
-
maximum drawing space by hiding tools bar
-
cross format documents. Diagrams are saved in html files. So, you can share them to people who don't have Violet!
-
export diagram image to clipboard so you can paste it in your word processor
-
export diagram image to file
-
printing
-
restores workspace on startup with opened documents
-
translated into English and French (Contribute for transletion!)
-
(ONLY for Eclipse plugin) drag’n’drop existing class files or Violet files into your class or sequence diagram
-
(ONLY for Eclipse plugin) compliant with local history so you can restore previous document releases
-
(NOT FOR Eclipse plugin) provided with nice looking look and feel and compliant with other standard look and feels
Unsupported features
Here are some of the features that industrial-strength UML programs have and that Violet does not have
-
code generation. Violet does not generate any source code from UML diagrams.
-
reverse engineering. Violet does not generate UML diagrams from source code (Except for class diagrams with Eclipse)
-
semantic checking of models. You can use Violet to draw contradictory diagrams
-
XMI export or import. Violet does not generate files that can be imported into other UML tools, nor can it read model files from other tools