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Preserving layout in XMI

 
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Am I correct in assuming that XMI does not include elements for specifying the visual layout of a UML model?
The reason why I'm asking is that we've been fantasizing at work about moving technical documentation away from the defacto MS Office formats and into a clean separation between the content and presentation. Everything else would seem to work fine (in theory, at least), but if a UML diagram exported as XMI from Rose/whatever will not preserve the layout, there's no way of including those diagrams into the generated documents (PDF, for example).
 
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Hello Lasse,
XMI (XML Metatdata Interchange) is simply XML files for tool-to-tool integration between IBM products. So for example, the extensions and bindings between WebSphere Studio and WebSphere Application server are .xmi files. The .xml files comform to Sun DTD's, so IBM chose .xmi to make the purpose of those other files clear since they are not deployment descriptors per se.
Now, back to your original question. I have not personally used Rational Rose in conjunction with WebSphere Studio, but I will check with some of my friends and let you know what I find out. In the meantime, I would suggest that the information that Rose shares with Studio is just enough to bridge the model to the code. I would think that any documentation would still be done using the Rational modeling tools.
Am I anywhere near the mark?
 
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Hi Lasse,
You are correct -- layout information is not part of the XMI specification. However, what we normally do with our documents is (you're going to hate this) do the modeling in Rose or XDE and then copy the diagrams into Microsoft Word documents... The diagrams are copied as Windows Metafile's (graphics files) and not XMI.
XMI is meant to help exchange data between tools like Rational Rose and Together/J, or XDE and some custom code generator. It's a way of representing the "Design elements" like the classes, their connections and associations, etc. apart from the layout aspects. Thus, as Howard notes, we use XMI internally in WebSphere Studio because what we're conveying between the different Studio plugins is the relationship between classes (and even instances, which are also representable in XMI).
Hope this helps.
Kyle
[ December 13, 2003: Message edited by: Kyle Brown ]
 
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Originally posted by Howard Kushner:
XMI (XML Metatdata Interchange) is simply XML files for tool-to-tool integration between IBM products.


Actually, it's a standard by the Object Management Group: http://www.omg.org/technology/documents/formal/xmi.htm
 
Howard Kushner
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Thank you Ilja,
You are completely correct WRT OMG, and I neglected to completely state the proper context when I made that remark about tool-to-tool integration.
Regards,
 
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