Effexis Software, LLC recently announced Sequence Diagram Editor 1.5. The tool automates the creation of UML sequence diagrams and call flows: tasks best suited for telecommunications/wireless software, networking protocols, and complex systems that require the understanding and planning of sequences of events.

Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a specification of the not-for-profit computer industry specifications consortium Object Management Group (OMG) to model application structure, behavior, and architecture, as well as business process and data structure. According to the OMG, modeling in UML requires a tool — a very special tool, claims Effexis President Rodger Constandse, a tool that automatically takes care of layout, and even formatting across multiple pages. "Our tool supports additional diagram elements like states, actions, and timers that are not traditionally found in other sequence diagram UML tools," says Constandse.

"It used to take a long time in generic drawing programs to make the diagrams, because you had to draw the individual drawing elements, like lines and boxes, and then manually move things around when you wanted to make a change," explains Constandse. "[Sequence Diagram Editor] automates a lot of these tedious layout and formatting tasks; it automatically draws the shapes. Just enter the information on an input form and it takes care of placing the elements on the diagram." For example, if you want a message from one object to another, says Constandse, to create a message, you type a little bit of the message and take advantage of its auto complete feature, based on message names you used before. You can capture additional details as comments. "Users can print diagrams directly, or export to .RTF or .PDF," Constandse concludes.

Regis George is a software engineer for Medrad, Inc., a Medical device manufacturer that uses embedded software for automated injectors. (They do things like inject contrast dye into a beating heart for an exam.) Medrad is a participant in Control Area Network (CAN) In Automation (CIA), and is working on specifications for interfacing scanners directly to injectors to provide a more integrated systems environment. The company is using Effexis Sequence Diagram Editor to model the different use case scenarios to show how devices would interact... "[F]rom that, we would derive system requirements and conceptual design," says George.

According to George, Effexis provides, an incredible time savings, with a consistent and appealing presentation of information. "I was tired of Visio. I Googled a lot of tools — many very expensive. In a company, you have to get buy-in. This was (then) something like $35. There was a free trial, and it's low cost, so it's easy to get it in-house without a lot of evaluation."

Brett Pantalone is a Consulting Engineer at an international telecom firm. Pantalone used Sequence Diagram Editor on a GPS to describe messaging for coordinating timing between the GPS switch and the cellular systems. "It worked out quite well," says Pantalone. "Typically, for a task that size, it would take from day to a day-and-a-half with Visio. With Effexis, it took about six hours, so I cut my time in half."

Pantalone says he's used software that was geared too far toward simulation, as well as a drawing tool that wasn't optimized for message sequencing diagrams, so that, "every time you add or remove a signal, you would have to move all the other signals up or down. It was very tedious."

"If they're looking for a lot of fancy features, it doesn't have a lot of them," Pantalone advises, but, "It has good, basic tools for drawing sequence diagrams, and the output is very crisp and clean."

Sequence Diagram Editor costs $49, and a 14-day trial version is available.