Modeling .NET Applications

If you are using Visual Studio Enterprise Architect Edition, Visio for Enterprise Architects can be installed separately. Visio is a general- purpose diagramming and modeling tool. Visio for Enterprise Architects builds on top of the base Visio tool (see Figure 5.40) and adds functionality that integrates it with Visual Studio .NET 2003, making it useful for architects and designers to design applications, generate the basic code in Visual Studio Projects, and complete the development.

Figure 5.40. Modeling classes in Visio for Enterprise Architects.

To get started with modeling applications using Visio, open Visio for Enterprise Architects and create a new UML Model Diagram. Now drag and drop two classes onto the canvas. Name them BaseClass and DerivedClass , and then set up the link between the two using the generalization element (). To generate the source code, select UML, Code, Generate; then select the classes for which you would like the code to be generated. If you want a corresponding Visual Studio .NET solution to be created, select the option and click OK. A Visual Studio .NET “based solution that contains the two classes will be generated (see Figure 5.41).

Figure 5.41. Source code generation from Visio.