The Moth

So VS2005 brings with it a great feature: the Class Designer.

For those of you unfamiliar with UML, think of it as a diagrammatic compliment to the Object Browser and Class View.

If you are familiar with UML (and its 8-9 diagram types), think Class Diagram but MSFT are going their own way with a slightly different notation.

Classes (reference types) and interfaces are represented by rounded-corner box shapes, and Structures/enumerations (value types) are represented by square boxes. Abstract classes are shown with a dotted line. Each box has up to four sections: Fields, Properties, Methods and Events. This is a great improvement over UML, where you just have 2 sections for attributes and operations; representing anything else requires stereotypes and/or other custom mechanisms. Each member can individually be hidden. Furthermore, each section is collapsible, as is the class as a whole; from a usability point of view this is done easier than in any other tool I have used!

The other item available from the toolbox is a square yellow note for adding comments in free format. While on the subject of color, it is used as a further aid in distinguishing elements on the diagram: classes/structs are blue, delegates red, interfaces green and enums are violet (unless I have become color-blind :-)

Interface implementation is shown via the lollipop shape, and it's good to see just one of these coming out of a class with a list of all the interface names below it: this reduces clatter. Should you wish to view the member of each interface separately, this is just a context menu away: "Show Interface". Inheritance is represented by the UML closed arrow head. The only other relationship supported is open arrow head association (i.e. when a type references another type) and there is an excellent feature where a field/property can be visualised as an association or vice versa: "Show as Association". Naturally, if one of your classes contains a field of a framework type, then showing as association will show a class of the framework type...this is great for reverse engineering the .NET library classes.

The Class Designer is always in synch with your code. In case that was not clear, any change in the class diagram (e.g. adding a method, changing a field) is reflected in code and any change in the code (e.g. deleting a property, changing a delegate) is reflected on the diagram; there is no code generation/reverse engineering step; they are just "naturally" in synch. In fact, if you look at the file (with extension "cd") you will find an XML document with layout and file information, but nothing that describes the members of the types as they are all read via reflection every time the class diagram is displayed. Navigation between the two is easy: going from a diagram element to its code counterpart is a double-click away and at any point in a code file, one can "View in Diagram" the types declared in the file.

Did I mention that Class Designer not only is available for all languages but also for CF projects as well :-D

Next time we'll look at what is still missing...