Review of MagicDraw UML® 11.5 Professional Edition

UML design tools are intended to make OO analysis and design easier. All too often, though, the tools present obstacles to getting the work done, tempting a user to return to the casual flexibility of a whiteboard. During three months of frequent use, MagicDraw UML has proven to be an exception. It is a tool that cooperates in modeling without imposing unnecessary constraints. In using MagicDraw on a real project, I created many class and sequence diagrams, one state machine diagram and one activity diagram. For this review, I also reproduced various diagrams found in Scott Ambler's The Elements of UML 2.0 Style (a book which I highly recommend). My intention was to test the difficulty of following Mr. Ambler's style guidelines using MagicDraw. The sections below, through " State machine diagrams, " generally follow the sequence of the chapters in Ambler. A section is included when there is something interesting to say about how MagicDraw handles UML features. If there is no section for a given diagram type, no problems were encountered in creating or editing diagrams of that type using the software. The final sections cover other features of MagicDraw. Ambler recommends that designers avoid crossing lines in diagrams. The layout functionality in MagicDraw can make it easier to route lines efficiently, though automatically laying out a whole diagram seldom produced an eye-pleasing result. Fortunately, layouts can be applied to selected elements in a diagram. Such targeted automatic layout was much more useful. When lines must cross, Ambler suggests using circuit diagram crossing symbols. MagicDraw has no provision for this.