CS 371 Lab #1: Dia, Dia, Dia

Monday, January 23, SH 118b

We are going to be drawing UML diagrams for the next 10-14 weeks. An outstanding free Linux UML drawing tool is installed on our system: Dia.

A Java UML CASE tool that we might consider as an alternative if we can get it installed is Fujaba. There are many others.

  1. Read the Dia home page and manuals, starting from http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/
  2. Read through the Dia tutorial, under the Documentation link. Draw samples of the diagrams in the tutorial, print out the finished diagram.
  3. Put Dia in UML mode
  4. Use Dia to draw a class diagram for "some" of your project. Fill in as much details as you can think of. Include at least 6 classes, preferably more, like 10+.
  5. Add appropriate associations to your class diagram, including inheritance and aggregation relationships as well as user defined associations.
  6. Save your Dia class diagram. Then export it to .png format, an image format that is widely supported by web browsers. Warning: exporting in .png format pops up another tiny "image size" dialog that may be behind your other windows! You won't get a .png file until you click OK in that image size dialog! Put the .png file in your public_html directory and add it as an <IMG src="..."> tag to a lab1.html page that has the title "CS 371 Sample Class Diagram". Print it out from your web browser.
What to turn in: hard copies of your diagram from the tutorial and a browser print of the dia version of your first-pass class diagram.

Sample screen based on tutorial exercise:

Sample image of class diagram: