eTutorial: InterProcs Use Case Diagrams

1. Ronald M. Lee Erasmus University Research Institute for Decision and Information Systems (EURIDIS) Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands InterProcs is available at: http://abduction.euridis.fbk.eur.nl/ projects/InterProcs.html Please send comments to: euridis@fac.fbk.eur.nl eTutorial: InterProcs Use Case Diagrams

2. Hi -- welcome to InterProcs. The topic today is designing Use Case diagrams. I will assume that you are executing InterProcs in (standalone) Designer mode, and that you have arrived at this opening screen.

3. We begin with by going to the "UML" (Universal Modeling Language) menu, and select "Use Case Diagrams", and the sub-menu for "New Use Case Diagram...", as shown here.

4. For this example, we will give name our Use Case, "Purchase", as shown here.

5. You should now see a new window like this. The opening banner window of InterProcs is in the background.

6. We begin the design of this Use Case by adding two actors, Buyer and Seller. First select Add Actor from the "UseCaseTools" menu. Next click in the drawing area where the Buyer will appear.

7. You are prompted to provide the name of this first actor, e.g. Buyer. Then click the OK button.

8. The "stick man" icon for Buyer will appear as shown. Repeat this, to add Seller actor.

9. After adding Seller, you will see the two icons, like this.

10. Next we are going to add a Use Case (process), by selecting the "Add Use Case..." tool. After selecting this tool, click in the middle of the drawing area. (You can re-arrange this graphics later, to give them more aesthetic placement.)

11. Let us call this Use Case process, "Purchase Goods".

12. The process appears like this. Note that the positioning is a bit awkward. To fix this, we will use the "Select, Move Tool".

13. Once you have set the "Select, Move Tool", you can drag the graphic elements to the positions you choose.

14. After re-arranging, it looks like this.

15. Next we will link the various actors to the process by using the "Add Link..." tool.

16. With the "Add Link..." tool selected, drag the cursor from an actor to the process (or from process to actor.) The links will appear as shown here.

17. Next we will add a region, using the "Add Region..." tool. After selecting this tool, drag the cursor from the upper left corner to the lower right corner of the box where you want the region to appear.

18. The region will look something like this. can adjust the region's size by using the options under the sub-menu,

19. You can adjust the region's size by using the options under the sub-menu, "Change Region Size:". For example, suppose we select "Taller!". Then, click on the region, and it will become taller.

20. Here you see the region has grown taller. Similarly, you can make it shorter, fatter or thinner.

21. However, the graph so far has rather drab colors. We can brighten it up using the "Set Color" button. Click on this, and you will see a color wheel appear. Drag the little "+" in the color wheel to the bottom, where it is yellow. To make it a bright yellow, drag the brightness indicator to the right.

22. However, this is still not a very bright yellow. To make it a brighter, drag the brightness indicator to the right.

23. Now click on the button "Set This Color" and ...

24. You see that the background has now changed color. To change the color of the foreground (process ovals) or region, select these choices from the list, and repeat the color selection as before.

25. Here we have changed the foreground and region colors as well. Feel free to experiment with different color combinations that you find pleasing. Also, use the :Select, Move Tool" to re-position items, as you want them.

26. When you are done with your model, and you want to save it, go back to the main banner window, and select "Save Scenario..." from the "File" menu.

27. A standard file dialog will ask you where you want to save it. By convention, give your file the extension ".html"and save it in the InterProcs folder (where you have the InterProcs.jar file). Having saved it in this way, you can now also run it as an applet, by calling it from your Internet browser. Of course, you can open it from the standalone InterProcs by using the "Open Scenario..." option of the "File" menu.

28. Let us now quit, and re-edit the model we have save. To quit (standalone mode), use the "Quit"option of the "File" menu, as shown here. Note: in applet mode, the only way to quit, is to quit the browser. This is a Java bug.

29. Now re-start InterProcs, and go to the "Open Scenario..." option of the "File" menu to open the model we have just saved.

30. A (platform dependent) file open dialog box will appear, something like the following...

31. Now, to demonstrate one further feature, let us remove an actor, Seller, and replace it with another, Vendor. To do this, we select the "Delete Node..." option from the "UseCaseTools" menu. This tool can be used to delete any of the graphical nodes on the graph. Any connecting links will also be removed.

32. After clicking on the Seller actor, it has disappear. BE CAREFUL WITH THIS TOOL -- IT IS A SHARP KNIFE!

33. Now we go and add another actor, calling it Vendor. We do this, repeating the earlier step of selecting "Add Actor...".

34. The Use Case model can be further refined, and save again (possible using a new name). To illustrate, we have here added an additional UseCase process, with corresponding links.

35. that's it ... please experiment further, and let us know if you have any questions or comments. Ronald M. Lee Erasmus University Research Institute for Decision and Information Systems (EURIDIS) Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands InterProcs is available at: http://abduction.euridis.fbk.eur.nl/ projects/InterProcs.html Please send comments to: euridis@fac.fbk.eur.nl