UML Diagram Resource primary package. This package exposes the entry point for the UML Diagram Resource API though {@link com.ibm.xtools.viz.ui.UMLDiagramResourceUtil UMLDiagramResourceUtil}.

Package Specification

The UML Diagram Resource API consists of a single static utility class, {@link com.ibm.xtools.viz.ui.UMLDiagramResourceUtil UMLDiagramResourceUtil}, and of several other classes and interfaces that are accessible from UMLDiagramResourceUtil. The implementation of these other classes and interfaces spans several plug-ins in the product. These plug-ins are re-exported from the plug-in that exposes UMLDiagramResourceUtil, which is com.ibm.xtools.viz.ui. To use the UML Diagram Resource extensibility, API clients must only add a single plug-in dependency to com.ibm.xtools.viz.ui.

Extensibility Architecture

The foundation of the UML Diagram Resource extensibility is called the modeling platform. The modeling platform consists of a set of services that enable the management of UML 2.0 models and is based on a UML 2.0 meta-model that the Eclipse UML2 Project provides. Because the meta-model is an EMF-based implementation of the UML 2.0 specification, the objects that represent user models are UML2 objects.

For example, {@link com.ibm.xtools.viz.ui.UMLDiagramResourceUtil#openDiagram UMLDiagramResourceUtil.openDiagram} returns a notation {@link com.ibm.xtools.notation.Diagram Diagram} whose {@link com.ibm.xtools.notation.View#getChildren children} have an associated UML2 {@link org.eclipse.uml2.Element Element} accessible from {@link com.ibm.xtools.notation.View#getElement View.getElement}. Like all UML2 objects, Element indirectly extends the {@link org.eclipse.emf.ecore.EModelElement EModelElement} EMF object.

The modeling platform includes a set of subsystems that offer services for EMF-based models such as the UML 2.0 meta-model. The most important of these services, the Modeling Services Layer (MSL), enables controlled access to EMF models through its {@link com.ibm.xtools.emf.msl.EditingDomain EditingDomain}.

The Presentation Service, which enables a Notation meta-model to display diagrams of EMF models, is another modeling platform service for EMF-based meta-models.

The modeling platform also exposes interfaces to help manage notation-based diagrams:

{@link com.ibm.xtools.uml.ui.IUMLUIHelper UMLUIHelper}
A user interface helper for using UML2 elements
{@link com.ibm.xtools.uml.diagram.IUMLDiagramHelper UMLDiagramHelper}
A helper for using UML 2.0 notation-based diagrams
UML Notation
UML 2.0 specific extensions to the notation meta-model