Creating Diagram Elements

The main tools you use for constructing diagrams are:

Diagram View Toolbar buttons. Use toolbar buttons to place icons for diagram elements and draw links on the diagram background.

Context menu. Right-click on the diagram background or on the diagram in the UML Explorer or UML Navigator view to show the diagram context menu. Use the context menu to show hidden objects, manage the layout, and update diagrams and hyperlinks.

Element context menus. The context menus of the various diagram and link elements provide functions specific to each. For example, you can add or delete members (or delete the element itself), cut-copy-paste, hide and show elements, and more. Explore the context menus of the different elements as you encounter them to see what is available for each one.

Properties view. (context menu > Properties) Use the Properties view to edit diagram or element properties, create hyperlinks between diagrams or elements of diagrams and other diagrams, or edit annotations and source code comments.

Using the Diagram View Toolbar

To place an element on a diagram:

Create or open a diagram. (See Creating New Diagrams.)

On the Diagram view toolbar, click the button for the diagram element you want to place on the diagram. The button remains depressed.

Move the mouse pointer over the Diagram view. As the mouse pointer hovers over the diagram, if the location is suitable for the creation of the element, it changes to the mouse pointer shown below. Place the mouse pointer where you want to create the new element, and click. This creates the new element and activates the in-place editor for naming the element.

NB: You can display the names of toolbar elements on and off for the Diagram view toolbar by clicking on the "Display/Hide" button.

Using the Context Menu

All elements, with the exception of links, can be created through the diagram context menu.

To use the context menu:

Right click inside of the Diagram view, or right click on the diagram in the UML Explorer or UML Navigator view.

From the context menu, select New > element type. The submenu displays all basic elements that can be added to the diagram.

Using Element Context Menus

Certain elements can be containers for other elements, for example, a class has methods, and a state may contain substates.

To add elements to a parent element:

Right click on the parent element in the Diagram, UML Explorer, or UML Navigator view.

From the context menu, choose New and the element type. The figure below shows the elements that you can insert into a class.

Deleting Diagram Elements

To delete diagram elements, select the element(s) on the diagram, and press the Delete key on the keyboard. Alternatively, right click, and select Delete from the context menu.

To select multiple items for deletion, press CTRL+click, and click on the items individually. Alternatively, click the diagram background and drag a "rubber-band box" around an area to select all elements it contains.