UML Designer User's Guide


Adding Use Case elements

Based on the requirements for the library catalog system, we can identify three use cases, each describing a particular user task:

To add these use cases to the Library Catalog model, follow these steps:

  1. Select Use Cases in the middle pane of the Relationships Browser.
  2. Select New from the Relationships menu, or from the pop-up menu in the middle pane.
  3. Type Adding a new book to the catalog.
  4. Select OK. The new use case appears in the list in the rightmost pane.
  5. Repeat the same procedure to add the other two use cases listed above.

A use case requires a carefully written description, rather than just a brief title. We must now use the hypertext pane (at the bottom of the Relationships Browser) to add detail to each use case. To edit the text of a use case, select the use case from the list and type the text in the hypertext pane. You can use the hypertext pane's pop-up menu to save the text, just as in any Smalltalk browser.

Add the following text to the first use case, Adding a new book to the catalog:

A new book arrives at the library, and a librarian creates a new catalog entry with the book's author, title, and Dewey number. The catalog entry is then assigned a serial number and registered in the catalog. The catalog uses the book's Dewey number to print a bookplate and spine label for the book.

When you have finished, save the text by selecting Save from the pop-up menu or pressing Ctrl+S.

Optionally, you can add descriptive text for the other use cases you created. These aren't necessary for the rest of the example, because we will focus on the Adding a new book use case.


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