 |
A frame in the
UML encapsulates a
collection of collaborating instances or refers to
another representation of such. Frames are
depicted as rectangles with a notched descriptor box in
the top left corner. Frames come in two flavors, a
diagram frame such as Batch Transcript Printing
and combined fragment frame such as the loop
frame, both in Figure 1.
Diagram frames explicitly define the boundary of a
diagram whereas combined fragment frames encompass
portions of a diagram or provide references to other
diagrams or method definitions. |
|
Figure 1. A
frame encompassing a sequence diagram.
 Figure 2. Modeling alternate
courses of logic.
Figure 3. The
internals of the seminar component.
- Avoid Diagram
Frames. The Batch Transcript
Printing diagram frame of Figure 1 adds a significant amount of visual
clutter in the process.
-
Use Interaction Occurrences Over Part Decompositions. There are two references to
logic external to Figure 1:
the TranscriptBatch object includes a
reference to PrintRun and there is a combined
fragment referencing the SharedServices.print()
method. The style of the first reference is
called a part decomposition and the second an
interaction occurrence.
-
Fully Specify Operation Names in References.
- Depict One
Interface Per Port.
Ports are
connection points between a classifier and its
environment which, are depicted on the side of frames
as small rectangles.
- Depict One Port Per
Realizing Class. See also
UML interface style guidelines.
- Deemphasize
Frame Borders. In Figure 1
you see that the frame border is lighter than the lines
around it.
- Apply
Standard Labels to Descriptors.
Table 1
summarizes common labels for diagram frames and
Table 2 the common labels for
combined fragments.
Table 1. Diagram
frame labels.
Table 2. Combined
fragment labels.
|
Label |
Usage |
|
alt |
Indicates several alternatives,
only one of which will be taken, separated by
dashed lines. Used to model if and
switch statements. See the example in
Figure 2. |
|
assert |
Indicates that the fragment
models an assertion. |
|
criticalRegion |
Indicates that the fragment must
be treated as atomic and cannot be interleaved
with other event occurrences. Often used within
a par frame (Douglass 2004). |
|
loop |
Models logic which will be
potentially repeated several times. |
|
opt |
Models optional logic depending
on the run-time evaluation of a guard. |
|
par |
Indicates several fragments of logic, separated
by dashed lines, all of which will run in
parallel. |
|
ref |
References another diagram or a
method definition. |
|
|
|
The Elements of UML 2.0 Style describes a collection
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guidelines
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to carry around. |
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