Tool for Creating UML Sequence Diagrams
Posted 16 years ago
If you have to draw something called "UML Sequence Diagrams" for work or school, you already know that it can take hours to get a diagram to look right. Here's a web site that will save you some time:
You can just write the diagram out in text, click "Draw", and the web site will spit out an image. Then you can tell your boss that you slaved for hours in MS Visio perfecting every line...
Example
Here's an example of what you'd write. Notice that the syntax is very natural.
Alice->Bob: Authentication Request
alt successful case
Bob->Alice: Authentication Accepted
else some kind of failure
Bob->Alice: Authentication Failure
note right of Bob: Bob clears key cache
end
... And here's the resulting image:
Hey, wait a minute...
Astute readers will notice that I am the author of websequencediagrams.com. Yesterday I added a note pleading with people to blog about it or at least link to it, and I figured that I should practice what I preach. So this article is nothing but a shameless plug for my other web site.
The fact is, the page doesn't have much text on it, so its hard for people to come across it by searching alone. I added it to Wikipedia and so far that's where most people find it. The more links I have, the more Googler's will find it.
Alternatives
| Quick Sequence Diagram Editor | Java program with confusing syntax. |
| mscgen | Unix command line program. I was inspired by its syntax, but found it overly verbose. |
| Sequence Diagram Editor | Nice editor, if you love filling in text boxes. $99 |
| Tracemodeler | A worthy competitor, though we have different views on the use of text. Its author, Yanic, and I try to see is first to mention our tool on web forums. |
Steve Hanov makes a living working on
Rhymebrain.com,
rapt.ink,
www.websequencediagrams.com,
and Zwibbler.com. He lives in
Waterloo, Canada.
Post comment
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Paolo Marcheschi
nine years ago
Hi
Your sequence diagram editor is fabulous it works like charm and it is very simple to use !!
Thank you
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Rohitha
13 years ago
Maybe an online diagramming app such as Creately could have been used here? Just a suggestion. :-)
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Christian
13 years ago
I just came across your tool while searching for easy to use sequence diagrams. I have to say, that it's perfect for my purpose. I always hated to fidle around with graphical tools. Here the tools takes care of the graphics itself. Perfect! Thanks a lot.
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Marc Lepage
13 years ago
The text to diagram principle is also evident in the classic programs Dotty and Graphviz.
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John Mathew
13 years ago
I am using Visio 2010 for creating UML diagrams. It is a great diagramming software which simplifies the complexity with dynamic, data-driven visuals.
www.visiotoolbox.com/2010
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Jukka
15 years ago
Hi,
your web based MSC tool is great! Hopefully you can launch the commercial version soon.
Br,
Jukka
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Kurt Avish
15 years ago
You just catch my attention buddy! Wonderful tool. Gonna blog on this for you coz you just helped me save some hours of Visio lol. Thanks :-)
Kurt
islandcrisis.net
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3_jeeps
15 years ago
MS Visio has a nice set of 'UML' modeling templates, of which sequence diagrams is one of them. Visio is more than a drawing environment. It is exensible and for example, allows name exporting/matching to other objects, i.e. code module names, variable, etc.
This is not a plug for Visio, just an example of a tool that is often bundled with MS tool distributions on college campuses.
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Steve Hanov
16 years ago
I have rewritten the tool from scratch in C++ instead of python. This provides more reliability, so you should not experience any more outages. I found that python was rather flaky. The main reason is because the startup time was several seconds, so I had to run it as a server. If one diagram caused the tool to freeze somehow, then it was shot for the day. The new C++ code is fast enough to be started with each diagram request.
I plan to commercialize the tool. For the free version, you can generate all the sequence diagrams you want using the web interface, or even external tools using the HTTP interface. That should be sufficient for any open source or student projects. However, businesses can't use a tool where they have to post their confidential diagram on the web, so they will have to buy a copy to run locally.
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Max
16 years ago
Hi, your sequence diagram tool is excellent! Simple and easy to use. Thank you!
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Didier Bretin
16 years ago
Hi, do you plan to add another uml diagram ? Do you plan to
publish your sources ?
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Kumar
16 years ago
Your tool is excellent and I've been using it at work for last 2 weeks and really helped to debug some issues. I wrote a tool to generate the the text for your tool from our debug log. Then I copy the text into your tool to generate the sequence diagram to see whats going on. I'm working on wireless product and our debug log contains transactions exchanged by our wireless unit with remote base station.
Anyway, your tool is not working today. I click on Draw and nothing happens. Any ideas?
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