Sixth Major Version - Modern Diagramming Tool

The sixth major version of Software Ideas Modeler is finally available to download. It comes in two binary versions - 32-bit and 64-bit - you can choose the one you prefer. There is also a new edition – standard. It brings approximately 160 improvements and new features and fixes 11 bugs from previous version.

The first big change you will see when you open the application is the new user interface. It was completely reworked. It offers bigger customization. You can drag sidebars, move them to separate windows, group them, minimize or maximize them, dock them to left or right, it is all up to you.

The feature which will welcome you at each start of Software Ideas Modeler is ‘Start with’ box. It allows you easily to create a new projects with the start diagram you choose or to continue in your last work, when you decide to choose an existing project. All you new to do is to type something in start with box and it offers you matched results.

A wide range of diagrams is now even wider. There were added SysML Diagrams, Venn Diagram, Chen Notation E-R Diagram, Mind Map and Matrices (CRUD, RACI, RADIO, etc.). A lot of diagrams was significantly improved - e.g. Interface Diagram and Requirements Diagram.

In Interface Diagram you can draw menus, tab controls, group boxes, track bars. There are also new options for existing elements as window, check box or progress bar.

More options offers also Use Case Diagram. Now you can add description, assign primary actor for each use case. You can also define flow of actions, precondition, postcondition, frequency of use and/or priority for each one.

The number of diagrams has been considerably increased from the first version. In the current version there are tens of diagrams. Therefore, it has proved necessary to make more efficient their creation. Now, it is much easier. On the tab bar after last tab there is a new button with a green plus symbol. It shows the diagram menu, where the diagrams are grouped in multiple groups. Five diagrams on the top of menu are the most used ones – your favorites. (Also the diagram bar in Project sidebar was changed – instead of buttons for all UML diagrams, buttons for top ten diagrams are displayed.) The other feature which makes creation of new diagrams easier is search box. When you open diagram menu and start to type – the search box will show and the offered diagrams will be filtered by the text you enter.

Search is not only available in diagram menu, but it is also implemented in project tree. If you click on project tree and start to type, the content will be filtered.

From version 6, the editing of diagrams is more convenient and easier. There are a lot of things which will facilitate your work. You can take advantage of snap lines. Editing of rectangular lines is much more comfortable – the way of editing was completely changed. The freehand feature allows you smooth creation of complicated rectangular paths. You can now use a freehand style of relation path creation. Just select a relationship (for example an association) on the sidebar and use the right mouse button to connect two elements using the red line

Editor of styles was completely revamped. There are also new style options – line cap size, glow, line dash style and alpha (transparent) colors.

If you use version control system SVN, you can commit and update the project files directly from Software Ideas Modeler.

Sending emails with attached SIM Project is simple as well (File/Send email). Useful feature can be auto backup, which automatically saves your project to bak files in specified interval. It can save your work when some unexpected problems occurs.

The Auto Export feature allows you to automatically export images or XMI files each time you save your project file.

From this version, Software Ideas Modeler supports work with design patterns and field patterns. You can create your own patterns and save your time at future modeling.

There is much more small improvements which were added. The complete list of improvements is available below.

New Features and Improvements

• Completely reworked UI with new auto-sized sidebar system
• Added Chen Notation ER-diagram
• Added Venn Diagram
• Added Matrices
• • CRUD
  • RACI
  • RASCI
  • RACIO
  • RACI-VS
  • DACI
• Added SysML Diagrams
• • Activity Diagram
  • Block Definition Diagram
  • Internal Block Diagram
  • Package Diagram
  • Parametric Diagram
  • Requirement Diagram
  • Sequence Diagram
  • State Machine Diagram
  • Use Case Diagram
• Added Mind Maps
• Improved Use Cases - added description, primary actor, precondition, postcondition, frequency of use, priority, flow of actions
• Improved Requirement Diagram (Other Diagrams) - Added Requirement Table
• Improved User Interface Diagram
• • Improved model
  • Added icons for elements in project tree
  • Added additional settings for progress bar (progress bar type, progress value, show percentage)
  • Added additional settings for window (show maximize button, show minimize button, show close button, show sizing grip)
  • Added support for styling
  • Added new elements: tab control, menu, group box, track bar
  • Added specific context menu settings for UI elements
• SVN support
• • Update
  • Commit
  • Conflict resolution
• Added BPMN Data Association [RQ#180]
• New easy way of drawing rectangular relations [RQ#96]
• Design patterns
• • Creation of custom patterns
  • Library of standard patterns
  • Design pattern in side bar
• Field patterns - patterns as sets of attributes and/or operations
• Auto SnapLines
• Searching in project tree
• Added Style Set Manager
• • Add, edit, duplicate and delete style sets
  • Export and import style sets
• Improved work with styles
• • New style editor
  • Added Style side bar
  • Added preview of style in Style Set Editor
  • Added Duplicate button to Style Set Editor
  • Added multiple options for adding new style from sidebar (New/New by Selected Style/New by Style of Selected Element)
• Added new styling options
• • Glow
  • Shadow size
  • Padding left, top, right and bottom
  • Border dash style
  • Option for size of line caps [RQ#190]
• E-mail sending (File/Send E-mail) - using system e-mail client or simple built-in e-mail client
• Added lots of pre-defined shapes in graphics library
• Added SVG import (Graphics editor)
• Auto backup
• • Interval of backup
  • Number of last preserved backups
  • Smart backup preserving
  • Output directory (project directory or any custom folder)
• Auto export
• • Output directory (project directory or any custom folder)
  • Allowed to specify which diagram to export
  • Images (allow to specify export settings) [RQ#77]
  • XMI
• Added template for Fluent NHibernate (C#, VB.NET)
• Added new menu for diagram adding to tab bar
• • Favorite diagrams on top
  • Allow to change the model for diagram
  • Allow to search in diagrams (just start to type)
  • Categorized diagrams, search by categories [RQ#145]
• Added export to CSV
• • Elements in Element Browser
  • Tasks and Persons
  • TO-DOs
• Improved work with rectangular relations
• Improved type handling in generation - language-specific types are used for each code language
• Added support for relations between multiple attributes (E-R diagram)
• Added support for indexes to entity (E-R diagram)
• Added generation of indexes (SQL DDL template)
• Added special tool for E-R diagram - Generate indexes for foreign keys (Tools menu)
• Attributes and Operations split in separate tabs in Properties dialog
• Name textbox in Attribute and Operation dialog is focus on start
• Added 'Start with...' box to Start Page
• Words in documentation editor can be selected using double-click
• Added navigation by words (CTRL + Left/Right) to documentation and source code editor [RQ#121]
• Added default value to ERD entity
• Copy selection to clipboard in multiple formats
• Improved performance of shadow rendering
• Improved color picker
• • Color mixer
  • Opacity setting
• Scrollbar in toolbox is displayed only when the mouse cursor is over
• Added Up and Down buttons into the ERD attributes editor
• New logo and icon
• Toolbox does not display when it is not necessary
• Added visibility settings to Properties dialog
• Added background title to model overview window
• Added context menu to recent project list on start page
• • Moved delete button from list to the context menu
  • Open containing folder
• Added export and import of source code templates
• Added support for unspecified visibility [RQ#107, RQ#189]
• Buttons for UML buttons in project tree toolstrip replaced with 10 top used diagrams (by statistics for last 30 days)
• Server and database names (in Database Selection dialog) are alphabetically sorted
• Improved auto-scroll of diagram canvas (auto-accelerated scrolling, turned off auto-shrink of diagram bounds during auto-scroll, auto-scroll during dragging of fields)
• Improved placing of context bar for extremely big elements
• Improved showing of menus from context bar
• Attributes and operations can be copied between classes using CTRL + drag&drop
• Added new items to context menu for attribute of ERD entity
• • Set/unset primary key
  • Set/unset foreign key
  • Set/unset auto increment
  • NULL/NOT NULL
• Toolbox can be docked to right side
• Added drop down list with style sets to the open button in Styles side bar
• Added copy&paste to project tree
• • Allowed to copy (multiple) whole diagrams
  • Allowed to copy (multiple) whole models
• Improved refreshing of element list in Element Browser
• Added new template language commands:
• • Command for foreign key references of ERD entity (References, InverseReferences)
  • Commands for ERD relationship (PrimaryKeyAttributes, ForeignKeyAttributes, PrimaryKeyEntity, ForeignKeyEntity, FromAttributes, ToAttributes, FromEntity, ToEntity)
  • Comparing commands: GreaterThan/GT, LessThan/LT
  • Iteration commands: Count, Reverse
  • Template processing commands: ExplicitLinesOn, ExplicitLinesOff
• Added default type set setting for each diagram
• Improved work with types in E-R diagrams
• When you rename attribute/operation in diagram only name is selected defaultly
• Program remembers restore bounds of main window instead of real bounds
• Added Rotation dialog, which allow to set exact absolute rotation of elements or rotate them by specified angle (menu Arrange/Rotate/Rotate...)
• Added Reset Rotation (menu Arrange/Rotate/Reset Rotation)
• Program shows warnings for diagrams, which can cause problems during batch export
• Confirmation dialog shows only if something changed in Properties dialog [RQ#175]
• Program displays bounds of dragged element
• Program remembers the last used printer [RQ#124]
• Improved Instance specification tab in Properties dialog
• • Added move up/down buttons
  • Values are remembered for attributes with the same names when you change classifier
• Improved Enumeration elements
• Order of attributes and operations in Properties dialog can be changed using drag and drop
• Improved check for custom size of diagram
• Added ability to export type set [RQ#197]
• Added ability to delete type set
• Auto-complete list is automatically scrolled to selected item
• Added settings for PDF export of diagram (Page size, DPI)
• Save dialog for PDF export remembers the last used path
• New default style set and other new style sets - Professional, Sketch, Blue Accent, High Contrast, Typewriter
• The name of used style set is displayed in Style Set side bar
• Improved rendering of "many" end of relation in E-R diagram
• Added displaying of line points for all types of relationships
• Added reference to class attributes for objects/instance specifications
• Added size grip which allows to change the width of name of relation and message text of sequence message
• Added type set for Visual Basic 6

Fixed Bugs

• Fixed selection - CTRL/SHIFT keys allows to modify current selection (add/remove selected elements) in rectangle selection mode
• Fixed tab dragging
• Fixed snapping to grid when you resize an element from left top corner
• Fixed applying padding style to ERD entities
• Fixed adding to container from drag&drop action in UI diagram
• Fixed application crash when you handle tabs in tab switch in specific way [RQ#198]
• Fixed application crash when you create new filter and diagram window/tab is active [RQ#193]
• Fixed application crash when try to assign person to task in Task Management window and no task is selected [RQ#192]
• Fixed saving of ID in custom type sets [RQ#196]
• Fixed not working Remove All Custom Styles
• Fixed loading of file with duplicate element IDs [#202]

Downloads