Overview of general flow diagrams
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• In Studio 7.0 and earlier versions, General Flow Diagrams were named Activity Diagrams: If you created Activity Diagrams in Studio version 7.0 or earlier and have upgraded, your Activity Diagrams are now called General Flow Diagrams in Modeler.
• Studio 7.1 included new Activity Diagrams, which you should use in preference to General Flow Diagrams. General Flow Diagrams are being deprecated and are included in Modeler only for backward compatibility.
• Should you need to create General Flow Diagrams, they can now be created only from the Model or a Package. After creating a General Flow Diagram you can drag it to an Activity, Actor, Class, Data Type, Event, Interface, Operation, Subsystem or Use Case.
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General flow diagrams can be used in many different ways during the lifecycle of a project. For this reason, General Flow Diagrams have been implemented in a flexible way to support the varied uses.
A General Flow Diagram can be created as a child of a Package or the Model.
A new General Flow Diagram includes a single Swimlane. You can create additional top level and nested Swimlanes on the diagram. If a Swimlane represents a dictionary item, you can link the Swimlane to the item it represents. A Swimlane owns the symbols that are placed on it. For more information about Swimlanes, see the following topics:
You develop a General Flow Diagram by adding symbols to it and then linking those symbols to the items they represent. The symbols that appear on a General Flow Diagram are General Flow Diagram Nodes and General Flow Diagram Flows.
• The Node Type of a General Flow Diagram Node determines which of the following symbols appears on the diagram:
◦ Accept Event
◦ Action
◦ Activity Final
◦ Decision
◦ Flow Final
◦ Fork
◦ Initial
◦ Object
◦ Send Signal
For more information about the preceding symbols and their usage, see General flow diagram node (dictionary item).
• The Flow Type of a General Flow Diagram Flow determines which of the following symbols appears on the diagram:
◦ Solid Flow
◦ Dashed Flow
For more information about the preceding symbols and their usage, see General flow diagram flow (dictionary item).
If you link a symbol to a dictionary item and then open the Property Pages for the symbol, the properties of the linked item are displayed. Likewise, if you right-click a symbol that is linked to a dictionary item, context menu commands for the linked item are displayed.
Note that when you link an Activity or Operation to an Action or Frame Box on a General Flow Diagram, you can view the Activity's or Operation's Parameters as pins. In addition, you can show an Operation's Exceptions and Return Type as pins. To populate pins, right-click the linked Action or Frame Box, point to Populate, and then click Pins or Parameter Pins.