Gaphor

Gaphor is the simple modeling tool for UML.

Gaphor is a simple and easy to use modeling tool for UML. It is aimed at beginning modelers who want a simple and fast tool so that they can focus on learning modeling of software and systems. It is not a full featured enterprise tool.

📑 Table of Contents

• Background
• Install
• Usage
• Contributing
• License

📜 Background

Gaphor is a UML modeling application written in Python. It is designed to be easy to use, while still being powerful. Gaphor implements a fully-compliant UML 2 data model, so it is much more than a picture drawing tool. You can use Gaphor to quickly visualize different aspects of a system as well as create complete, highly complex models.

Gaphor is designed around the following principles:

• Simplicity The application should be easy to use. Only some basic knowledge of UML is required.
• Consistency UML is a graphical modeling language, so all modeling is done in a diagram.
• Workability The application should not bother the user every time they do something non-UML-ish.

Gaphor is built on Gaphas, which provides the foundational diagramming library. It is a GUI application that is built on GTK and cairo, PyGObject provides access to the GUI toolkit, and PyCairo to the 2D graphics library.

💾 Install

To install Gaphor in Linux use Flatpak:

1. Install Flatpak
2. flatpak remote-add --user --if-not-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
3. flatpak install --user org.gaphor.Gaphor

We are currently working on installation packages for Windows and macOS. Until that is ready, you can install Gaphor, using pip:

$ pip install --pre gaphor
$ source ./venv
$ gaphor

Use of a virtual environment is highly recommended.

Development

To setup a development environment with Linux:

$ sudo apt-get install -y python3-dev python3-gi python3-gi-cairo
    gir1.2-gtk-3.0 libgirepository1.0-dev libcairo2-dev
$ pip install poetry
$ source ./venv

🔦 Usage

Creating models

Once Gaphor is started a new empty model is automatically created. The main diagram is already open in the Diagram section.

Select an element you want to place, for example a Class, by clicking on the icon in the Toolbox and click on the diagram. This will place a new Class item instance on the diagram and add a new Class to the model (it shows up in the Navigation). The selected tool will reset itself to the Pointer tool if the option ''Diagram -> Reset tool'' is selected.

.. image:: oneclass.png

It's simple to add elements to a diagram.

Some elements are not directly visible. The section in the toolbox is collapsed and needs to be clicked first to reveal its contents.

Gaphor only has one diagram type, and it does not enforce which elements should be placed on a diagram.

Create New Diagram

.. image:: navpopup.png

To create a new diagram, use the Navigation. Select an element that can contain a diagram (a Package or Profile) and right-click. Select New diagram and a new diagram is created.

Copy and Paste

Items in a diagram can be copied and pasted in the same diagram or other diagrams. Pasting places an existing item in the diagram, but the item itself is not duplicated. In other words, if you paste a Class object in a diagram, the Class will be added to the diagram, but there will be no new Class in the Navigation.

Drag and Drop

Adding an existing element to a diagram is done by dragging the element from the Navigation section onto a diagram. Diagrams and attribute/operations of a Class show up in the Navigation but can not be added to a diagram.

Elements can also be dragged within the Navigation in order to rearrange them in to different packages.

🔍 API

❤️ Contributing

Thanks goes to these wonderful people (emoji key):

Arjan Molenaar 💻 🐛 📖 👀 💬 🐛 🔌 ⚠️	wrobell 💻 ⚠️ 🎨	Dan Yeaw 💻 ⚠️ 📖 📦 🚇 🐛 💬	melisdogan 📖	Adam Boduch 💻 ⚠️ 🐛	Enno Gröper 💻	JensPfeifle 📖
Alexis Howells 📖	Encolpe DEGOUTE 🌍	Christian Hoff 💻	Jordi Mallach 🌍	Tony 🚧	Jan 🐛

This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind are welcome!

1. Check for open issues or open a fresh issue to start a discussion around a feature idea or a bug. There is a first-timers-only tag for issues that should be ideal for people who are not very familiar with the codebase yet.
2. Fork the repository on GitHub to start making your changes to the master branch (or branch off of it).
3. Write a test which shows that the bug was fixed or that the feature works as expected.
4. Send a pull request and bug the maintainers until it gets merged and published. 😄

See the contributing file!

©️ License

Copyright (C) Arjan Molenaar and Dan Yeaw

Licensed under the Library General Public License 2.0.

Summary: You can copy, distribute, or modify Gaphor, as long as you include the required notices and license them under the LGPL.