Swimming lanes, XCode and Visio

[Peter H.M. Brooks]

Anca Mosoiu wrote:
> HI Peter,
>
>   
>> I am producing UML diagrams for processes - how do I configure 'swimming
>> lanes' (aka swimlanes, swimlines or, maybe, tramlines).
>>     
>
> The way I do this is to create a layer on the canvas just for the
> swimlanes, and then lock it.  Use another layer for the flowchart.  My
> documents usually have multiple canvases with three (or more) layers:
> Background, Flowchart/UI design, and Annotations.
>   
Yes, thank you, that'll make good sense for the diagrams and is fairly 
easy to set up - I imagine that it isn't any good for export to Visio or 
for exporting to a tool like Magicdraw to produce executable code. I see 
that Omnigraffle isn't a code generation tool.

I wonder if there is any chance of Omnigraffle ever embracing UML 2.0 
Document exchange (or UMI). Does anybody know anything about this?

If the Document exchange was implemented then all our worries about 
Visio would be over, and other tools - the documents would be, as they 
should be, exchangable to anything.
>   
>> Finally, a simple question. What is the earliest release of Visio that I
>> can export XML to? I've tried exporting UML diagrams to Visio (2000 and
>> 2003) and found the success variable at best.
>>     
>
> I've tried this numerous times as well, with some disappointing results. 
> The best success I've had is with Visio 2002, oddly.  However, the
> translation isn't 100%, so shapes are moved, text looks weird, etc.  The
> more complicated the diagram, the more likely it is you'll have to tweak
> it at either end to lay it out the way you wanted it.
>
> The Omnigraffle team is fairly responsive with this kind of problem.  You
> can send them your file and they can figure out what the problems are, but
> you may not be able to fix them on your end.
>
> It would be great if those us who use both Omnigraffle and Visio could
> convince the OG team to prioritize our translation problems somehow,
> because I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to be able to work in OG and just present
> in Visio.
>
>   
I see there are articles here dating back three or four years decrying 
the problems with Visio. So I understand your frustration. I only bought 
Omnigraffle professional a few days ago - specifically because it 
allowed export to Visio. So I fear that I'm going to be having long 
chats with the Omnigraffle support people! Oh, dear, I really hope not...!

Omnigraffle is just so much better than Magicdraw or Visio at actually 
putting stuff down on the page and getting a good diagram. It makes so 
much sense to use it as a front-end, no matter what you are going to be 
eventually using the UML for. However, if you can't export the diagrams 
anywhere, apart from to your printer, it is rather useless.

Maybe there is an update due out from Omnigraffle that will help with 
this - or we'll learn something about the UML 2.0 document exchange - 
after all, Omnigraffle is supposed to implement UML 2.0 and Document 
exchange is part of that...

Do the support people read discussions here?

I'd love it if somebody had a comment on the Xcode connection - if it 
were possible to use Omnigraffle to produce UML that could build Xcode 
projects that really would make it a seriously important OS/X tool!!!