I came across two great tools for creating UML diagrams. Traditionally I’ve used Visio, which is cumbersome and awkward to use. You need to click, drag, right-click, left-click, god-knows-click to get anywhere.
The great thing about these two tools is that they are text-based. You use a simple text syntax to create these diagrams. You get automatic visual feedback as you type.
- The first is SVG-Sequence-Diagram and was done using AngularJS, outputs SVG files and you can download the output as Postscript files of different sizes (A4 to A0).
- The second is js-sequence-diagrams and can be downloaded as SVG.
- The last is websequencediagrams.com which is a more commercial service.
Here is an example I put together (using js-sequence-diagrams) which illustrates a request-poll-response style architecture, which is good for working with CQRS style applications and message buses.
