Make it easier to draw lines (#96)
I often find it difficult to layout lines between two elements.
Some points can be moved freely in every direction, some in only one direction, some cannot be moved at all. I don't understand why.
Sometimes, I can drag a line to move it, other times, when I try to drag the line, a new point is inserted into the line instead. I also don't understand why that happens. It would be easier if it was more consistent and either always moved the line or always inserted a point.
We currently have 7 developers working with software ideas modeler. Many of them told me they find line drawing difficult.
It would be great if you could make it more intuitive, consistent and easier.
We do not need any reverse engineering or code generation features. The main use case for us is that we can create diagrams that help us to talk about our software architecture. Creating the diagrams should therefore be as eaysy and intuitive as possible.
Thanks,
Mathias
Mathias Raacke 13 September 2012 23:59:53
Hello Dušan,
I was talking about relations.
When I have a relation with multiple points, I can sometimes move the points, sometimes when I try to move them nothing happens. I don't understand why a point is unmovable, and I don't know what I need to do to move it.
When I try to drag a line, sometimes I can drag it, other times, a new point is inserted into the line instead. I also don't understand why that happens.
It would be nice if the behavior was more consistent. For example, clicking / dragging on a line should either always move the line, or always insert a new point. Right now, the behavior seems to "randomly" change (I guess it's not random, but I don't understand the logic behind the behavior).
Dragging / Moving a line often moves more points than I intended to move. Example: let's say I have a line with 5 points. I try to move a horizontal part of that line by dragging on the line between two of the points and moving the mouse up/down. The behavior I expect would be that only the 2 points connected to the part of the line that I drag move up/down. The actual behavior is that software ideas modeler often also moves all of the other points of the line as well, which is not what I want.
Another annoying behavior is that when I try to connect a line to an element, and release the mouse button, sometimes the line does not stay on the element where I released the button, but is instead connected to some outer element, because I released the line not far enough into the borders of the target element.
I hope that helps to better understand the problems I have.
Regards,
Mathias
Dusan Rodina - softwareideas.net 16 September 2012 9:37:17
Hello,
I think that the problem is in rectangular style of line. The work with it is a little uncomfortable. I try to improve it soon (probably next release).
Regards,
Dušan
Dusan Rodina - softwareideas.net 26 October 2012 16:11:03
I've got new info - work with rectangular lines will be revamped in version 6.
Dusan Rodina - softwareideas.net 31 August 2012 4:07:15
Hello,
there are only 3 types of lines: relation (association, generalization, dependency, etc.), sequence message (used only in sequence diagram) and simple line (from drawing group). Each of these types has its own defined behavior, which should be the same for all instances.
Behavior of relations depends also on their line style (which can be straight, oblique, rectangular or curve).
I believe you, that you can encounter some problems, but I need to identify what exactly is the problem. I will analyze what can be wrong, but if you can provide some other details or a specific example, it would help me a lot.