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I am looking for an Eclipse Plugin to create large class diagrams from existing Java code (free/open source). I found some plugins that create diagrams from java code and vice-versa, but the project has a large number of packages (about 80) and classes/interfaces (about 1000-1500) and I would like to create a diagram for the whole code, with different options (for eg, not to include the interfaces in the generated diagram or to create diagrams for certain packages). I know that the diagram would be very big, but that is what I really want to represent the project in a single diagram (and omitting unimportant classes, interfaces, packages etc and also members and method names).

Visruth
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Andrei F
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2 Answers2

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Try ObjectAid UML Explorer. And you should also try JUPE.

Sai Ye Yan Naing Aye
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  • Can the plugin create a diagram from a specified package(s) ? or do I have to select each class that I want to represent in my diagram ? :) – Andrei F Aug 29 '12 at 09:30
  • @ice13ill use ObjectAid. It gets what you want. – Sai Ye Yan Naing Aye Aug 29 '12 at 10:04
  • I installed it, but i cannot seam to make it generate a diagram from "src" classes (or classes from any other packege). Do i have to select each class from each package if i want to include them all (or almost all let's say...) – Andrei F Aug 29 '12 at 13:02
  • Anyway, I expanded my project tree and added all the clases (about 1000) to my new diagram. Unfortunately, my eclipse freezes every time I scroll the diagram (for about 2 min) . Also, it seams the diagram generated has a width/height ratio of about 100/1 – Andrei F Aug 29 '12 at 14:30
  • Well, it seams I'll have to create separate diagrams for different layers/systems/packages after all... Even so, it would be probably difficult (showing only public methods) to represent almost all classes. – Andrei F Aug 29 '12 at 17:51
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The project size is impressive. Before you will start with diagrams, try to answer to the following questions:

  • how many diagrams will you create (approximately) ?
  • how much time do you spent on one diagram (average) ?
  • what are total estimated and allowed time effort ?
  • is the result worth of the effort ?
  • is the structure changing ?
  • how much time effort has to be put into diagrams review+fixes after synchronization of model with changed code ?
  • how much time effort has to be put into maintenance of diagrams ?

In case of project of mentioned size, most likely results are not worth of the effort and most likely model and diagrams will be continuously out-dated.

I faced similar situation even with much smaller projects (< 100 class units). I tried some standalone tools - the best was Enterprise Architect (commercial), next - JUDE (currently astah*, but they cut off import functionality from community edition). However, they and other tools didn't discover dependencies, didn't show parametrized types (List<Something>) and didn't show annotations.

So finally I started to use free UML browser/navigator - Class Visualizer. It's like using interactive map versus scanned paper map. It allows to see selected class with all its relations: super-classes, implemented interfaces, sub-classes, referenced classes (associations, dependencies), usages (associations, dependencies). It processes and shows parametrized types and annotations. I can navigate to other classes through relations. Selected class is presented with all details, relations - without. I tried it on projects of your size - diagrams containing hundreds of relations are generated instantly. And its repository is compiled java project, so no problems with synchronization of model with code.

Jonatan Kaźmierczak
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