Overview of defining diagram symbol font, colors, node style and flow style through stereotypes

Stereotypes provide a controlled way of consistently changing the font, colors, node style and flow style of diagram symbols.

For information about using Stereotypes to provide an alternative symbol on a diagram, see Overview of using alternative item icons and symbols through iconic stereotypes.

A symbol's font, colors, node style and flow style can be defined in many ways:

For information about how the presentation of a symbol can be customized and how different ways take precedence other each other, see Overview of customizing symbols.

A Stereotype's Property Pages has a Style tab that allows you to specify the Stereotype's style properties, that is, alternative font and colors for diagram symbols.

To set up a Stereotype's style properties, on the Style tab of a Stereotype's Property Pages, you click the Edit button, and then from the Style Modification dialog you select the required font and colors. You can set up fonts for Symbols, RTF Text (rich text) and Token Text (model object references in rich text).

After applying a Stereotype to a symbol or its underlying item, you can apply the Stereotype's style properties to a symbol through its View Options: on the symbol's View Options you click the Style tab, click the Stereotype option, and then from the list select the required Stereotype.

Through a Stereotype, you can set up an item so that the Stereotype's style properties are used whenever that item is added to the diagram. To do this you select the Apply to New Symbols check box on the Directly-Stereotyped Options tab of the Stereotype's Property Pages.

When you set up font or colors for a Stereotype, you create style properties for that Stereotype. If you delete those style properties through the Delete button on the Style tab of a Stereotype's Property Pages, any symbols that use that Stereotype to define their presentation will revert to the Default view option.

• You cannot change the symbols on Concurrency Diagrams and System Architecture Diagrams.

• If a feature is not applicable to a symbol, that feature is ignored. For example, the background color is ignored when applied to a link symbol.

• Bold and italic settings are not stored, because UML specifies bold and italic formatting for diagrams.