USE: UML-based Specification Environment / News: Recent posts

• The USE-plugins ModelValidator, ObjectToClass and Filmstrip are now included in the default USE installation
• New features for the communication and sequence diagrams
  • Creating a communication diagram from a sequence diagram and the other way around
  • New filters for the message selection in the communication diagram
• New features for the object and class diagrams
  • Hide/Crop/Show now works for all cases
  • It is now possible to grey out objects in the object diagram
• Updates to the model validator
• Bug fixes

Minor release 5.0.1 is required to work with the new Object to Class Plugin. The plugin is also available here on sourceforge https://sourceforge.net/projects/useocl/files/Plugins/ObjectToClass/ObjectToClassPlugin-1.0.zip/download

USE 5.0.0 and every later version also runs on Java 9

Improved usability of the diagrams and interface changes for the Model Validator are new in this version. The list of changes includes:

• [GUI] Improved selection of nodes in diagram views
  • It is now possible to select multiple nodes at once by drawing a selection rectangle around them with the left mouse button
  • Holding down `Shift' during the selection adds objects to the selection
• [GUI] Exporting a diagram now exports the complete diagram instead of only the parts visible in the GUI
• [GUI] In the class diagram it is possible to group multiplicities and rolenames to easier adjust their positions
• [OCL] Improved identification of tautologies and contradiction in OCL parser regarding collection types
• [USE] Added interface to the shell allowing plugins to ask for user input. This takes into account currently read files opened via the shell
• [USE] Many bug fixes in the diagram views... read more

The list of changes includes:

• [GUI] Fixed a crash of the communication diagram when an operation with result value returns to the actor
• [USE] Fixed various errors when exporting model descriptions (e.g. by the command `info model') including: ternary-association navigation, annotations, @pre on allInstances(), let-expressions, inheritance on association classes and derived expressions
• [USE] Added possibility of specifying parents when creating association class in model API
• [USE] Added error message to Plugin API when trying loading the same plugin more than once

Major functional changes include:

• Renamed some commands. The functionality remains the same and help files have been adjusted accordingly. The old commands are still supported but print a warning, that they are deprecated. The support for the old commands will be dropped in version 4.2 of USE. (Note the addition of the - sign)
  • gen load has become constraints -load
  • gen unload has become constraints -unload
  • gen loaded has become constraints -loaded
  • gen flags has become constraints -flags
• Added option for aliases for Plugin API Shell commands.
• Improved handling of relative paths across all file handling commands.
• Print model statistics to the Shell when opening a USE specification on it.... read more

Major functional changes include:

• Support of UML protocol state machines (check out a quick introduction in our wiki)
• Initialization of attributes
• Derived properties (attributes and association ends)
• Due to changes in the type system support for Association.allInstances() was added, resulting in all links of that association
• PDF export for diagram views
• Usability improvements; amongst others:
  • Reload the last opened specification from the toolbar
  • Recently opened files
  • reopen command on the shell to quickly reopen any of the last 10 files... read more

* USE version 3.0.5 is a bugfix release with several internal improvements.

* The USE Model Validator plugin has been released in version 1.0.

* [SOIL] Explicit variable declaration is now default in operations.
Use 'declare var1 : type1, var2 : type2, ...;' after 'begin'.
The interactive mode on the command line stays implicitly typed.
The old behavior (implicit typing in operations) can be activated using the -implicitTypes switch.
See examples/soil.

* [OCL] Fixed wrong handling of undefined for operations append/prepend
on Sequence and OrderedSet

* [ASSL] Fixed bug in barrier statement

* [ASSL] Automatic calculation of barriers. Can be suppressed by using
the option -nb (no barriers) for gen start

* [ASSL] New Try-statement Try(Collection(Class), AttributeName, Sequence(Value)).

* [GUI] USE now saves a "default" Layout for the class diagram for a model.

* [GUI] Fixed object properties view to allow to set more then one attribute
at once.... read more

The main changes:

* [OCL] Added support for the closure operation introduced with OCL 2.3.

* [ASSL] New barrier statement to force backtracking if the invariant
or the expression specified by the barrier is false. The statement
can be used with an invariant name:
Barrier(Person::namesAreUnique);
or with an boolean OCL expression:
Barrier([Person.allInstances()->isUnique(name)]); ... read more

Main improvements in 3.0.0:
- Integration of SOIL (Simple OCL-based Imperative Language)
- New features in Diagrams (owner of elements are highlighted, move selected items with arrow key, ...)
- ASSL now supports association classes
- Try command of the Generator improved
- Qualified association ends
- ...

For details have a look into the file NEWS shipped with USE.

Again, just a small bugfix release for the new show/hide/crop features of the object diagrams.

This time, just a small change to the new feature "OCL Selection" in object diagrams. Now it is possible to show, hide and crop sets of objects which have OclAny as their common supertype.

You just need this version, if you are using this feature.

The main improvements in this release are:
- New PlugIn architecture
- Cycle and sharing detection for aggregations and compositions
- Standard operations introduced with OCL 2.2 are supported
- File references in command files can now be specified with realative names

The new Version can now be downloaded. It contains a lot of improvements and fixes. See MantisBT under Hosted Apps for details.

IMPORTANT: Java 1.6 is now required.