Following my previous post on UML, I’d like to point out a tool I like very much. It’s only for sequence diagrams but I find it does the job very good, and real quick too. Also, it’s far less of a pain than Microsoft Visio when changes have to be made.

The name is Tracemodeler and can be found on tracemodeler.com. The advantages are plenty. For the record, I did not code this tool, so I’m not trying to sell my own
First, you don’t have to drag and drop elements, connecting stuff. Just right-click on the diagram, choose the correct element and it appears on the screen, where you clicked. If you clicked between messages or any other elements, those are nicely rearranged so your original flow stays unmessed with.
Clicked on the wrong spot, and the message or object or whatever is in the wrong place? No problem, you can just left-click on it, and drag-and-drop it at the correct position. It even shows you where it will be dropped (see the red line), and everything stays connected.

All this, without you having to rearrange all the other elements because they got in each others way (as in Visio). This way, you can focus on your sequence diagram and build them quick and easy.

Apart from that Tracemodeler comes with a simple but slick UI. Nice colors and style, but no overload. Although I might say, not all icons fit perfectly with what they do. The dialog for the export settings is reached through clicking on a camera. One could expect this would take a screenshot. The ‘optimize target order’ option (handy!) has a magic stick as icon, which reminds me of wizards.

But that’s details. The fact is, this is a simple and easy tool with no bloat. I’d recommend you download it and give it a try.

That’s enough on UML I recon. I don’t plan to make this a UML blog. Anyone know good tools to make UML diagrams though, be sure to let me know.