VisualAge Smalltalk UML Designer Fact Sheet

A tool for modeling and requirements capture.

Highlights

IBM* VisualAge* Smalltalk Unified Modeling Language (UML) Designer provides you 
with the tools you need to engineer your application models and requirements to 
improve overall quality and maintainability. You can now define requirements, 
document use cases, create and print object model diagrams, and both generate 
and reverse engineer Smalltalk code with VisualAge Smalltalk UML Designer. It 
also supports many of the popular Unified Modeling Language specification types.

Features At-A-Glance

Modeling -- Distinct design elements are provided for each stage of the 
modeling process: requirements capture, analysis, and implementation. Elements 
are organized into models representing subsystems, and traceability links make 
it possible to maintain connections between design elements and eventual 
implementation elements.  Models can have "uses" and "used by" relationships to 
other models. 

Browsing -- Specialized browsers make it possible to organize requirements, use 
cases, and other OO design artifacts as named design elements. Each element can 
have a natural-language description and hypertext links to other related 
elements.

Diagramming -- Three graphical editors support the creation of diagrams using 
the Unified Modeling Language notation. Diagrams provide tightly integrated 
views of the underlying model, and they automatically reflect changes to design 
elements.  Use case, class, and sequence diagrams are supported.

Publishing -- VisualAge Smalltalk UML Designer can generate documentation based 
on the content of your model (or a subset) and the design elements it contains. 
Supported output formats include HTML, for viewing with a web browser, and RTF, 
for printing with a word processor.  Both manual and automatic generation of 
formatted output are provided. GIF files may be embedded in output.

Analyze, Design, Generate

VisualAge Smalltalk UML Designer allows you to capture and organize requirements 
and other high-level design information as models, and then transform these 
models into implementation (using VisualAge Smalltalk) or into Java source code 
(.java files). VisualAge Smalltalk UML Designer also allows you to analyze and 
document existing VisualAge Smalltalk applications.

With VisualAge Smalltalk UML Designer, you can generate documentation of new 
models or existing applications in HTML or RTF format. Plus, you can build 
specifications and models; and build, test, and debug your application - all 
within a single environment that includes version control. 

VisualAge Smalltalk UML Designer provides design artifacts and tools that are 
flexible and can be used in many different ways. It does not prescribe a 
specific OO methodology. Rather, it supports those elements of OO analysis and 
design that are common to the major methodologies, and that are generally most 
useful to working developers. In addition, VisualAge Smalltalk UML Designer 
supports an evolutionary approach to software development, where the design 
undergoes continual revision, even after implementation has begun.

Preserve Your Business Model in Code 

A model is a means of analyzing, representing, and documenting a system. The 
implementation of an object-oriented system can itself be regarded as an 
executable model. But modeling can also help explain a design in terms of 
higher-level abstractions (such as requirements and analysis objects) than the 
implementation code itself. 

Forward and Reverse Engineering

VisualAge Smalltalk UML Designer has transforms for both "forward" mapping 
(requirements > analysis > design) and "backward" mapping (reverse engineering). 

Forward transforms generate protocol message specifications, associations, 
attributes, and code.  Code generation includes the generation of classes and 
methods from class designs and protocols. Plus, you can generate VisualAge 
Smalltalk and Java source code for use in the VisualAge for Java development 
environment.

Backward transforms generate protocols, class designs, and "things" from 
Smalltalk classes.

Integrating with Team Environment

VisualAge Smalltalk UML Designer is tightly integrated with the VisualAge 
Smalltalk programming environment. In fact, all models are stored in the 
VisualAge Smalltalk repository. This integration provides the benefit of 
Component Management, which allows models to be treated as software. It also 
provides configuration management and version control of all design artifacts 
in the model, including import, export, and reconciliation capabilities. 
Individual design elements, as well as entire models, can evolve through many 
versions, and previous versions can always be retrieved. 

 International Business Machines Corporation 1998, 2002
All rights reserved.

* Trademark or registered trademark of International Business Machines 
  Corporation. IBM, AIX, MVS, DB2, IMS, CICS, OS/2 and VisualAge are trademarks
  of International Business Machines Corporation.

** Company, product, or service names may be trademarks or service marks of 
   others. Java and all Java-based marks and logos are trademarks or registered
   trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. 

Other company, product and service names are the property of their respective 
owners. 


