Working with decorative symbols

Chapter 6 Diagrams and Symbols

Working with decorative symbols

Decorative symbols have no technical meaning in your diagram, but help make it more readable. You can use them to surround parts of a model, for example, to distinguish domains of activity.

To draw a rectangle:

Select the Rectangle tool in the Palette.

Click at the point in the diagram where you want to insert one corner of the rectangle, hold the mouse button, and drag to where you want to place the alternate corner.

Release the mouse button to create the rectangle.

[optional] Click on and drag a handle to resize the rectangle.

The following tools are available:

Tool	Description
	Line
	Arc
	Rectangle. Press ctrl while drawing to create a square.
	Ellipse. Press ctrl while drawing to create a circle.
	Rounded Rectangle. Press ctrl while drawing to create a rounded square.
	Polyline - Release the mouse button at each point where you want to create a corner. Right click to finish.
	Polygon - Release the mouse button at each point where you want to create a corner. Right click to finish and close the polygon.
	Title Box - A diagram title box retrieves from the model properties and displays such information as: the model and the package to which the diagram belongs, the name of the diagram itself, the author and version of the model and the date of modification. If no Author is specified in the model property sheet, the user name specified in the Version Info page is used. You can choose to display the repository version number of the model or a user-defined version number on the Title display preferences page.

Modifying the type of corners
After creating certain shapes, you can modify the type of corner by right-clicking and selecting Format→Line Style and selecting a type in the Corners list. You can also define a default style for corners in the display preferences of graphic shapes.