Creating New Diagrams

Creating new diagrams is the core of creating new models. After all, it is the diagrams that communicate the design. You will surely want to know how to create new diagrams.

Diagrams are considered model elements themselves, therefore you must decide where the diagram will fit into the hierarchy of the model before you create the diagram. The Package Centric view of the navigation pane displays the distinct hierarchy. New diagrams are created in the topmost package of this hierarchy by default, but you can also create new diagrams for a specific package. If you select a specific package and then create a new diagram, the diagram will be created for that package. If anything else is selected in the Navigation pane, the new diagram will be created in the topmost package.

Some diagrams are specific for certain model elements. State and activity diagrams, for example are used to design the details of a class or a use case. Therefore such a diagram needs to be associated with a class or a use case. To do so, you need to select the class or use case prior creating the new state or activity diagram. Notice that this association is fixed and cannot be changed later.

New diagrams can be created in several ways: