Visualizing and Modeling Code with Feature Pack 2
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Feature Pack 2 includes the visualization and modeling capabilities in the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Visualization and Modeling Feature Pack. These capabilities expand the visualization and modeling tasks that you can perform in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate as described in the following sections:
Generate Code from Models
Explore Existing Code
Use and Manage Model Elements
Create, Validate, and Extend Layer Diagrams
Important
If you already have Visual Studio 2010 Visualization and Modeling Feature Pack installed on your computer, make sure that you copy any custom templates from the extension folders under %LocalAppData% to a safe location before you install Visual Studio 2010 Feature Pack 2. Installing this feature pack uninstalls the Visualization and Modeling Feature Pack, removing it from the Visual Studio Extension Gallery and also any custom templates under %LocalAppData%. You will have to remap the templates for any code generation projects to the following location, where you can also find the extensions and DLLs that are required to use some of the visualization and modeling capabilities:
…\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft\<InsertVisualStudioFeaturePackName>\<InsertVisualStudioFeaturePackVersionNumber>
For more information, see How to: Generate Code from UML Class Diagrams.
For more information about |
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Visual Studio 2010 feature pack downloads on MSDN |
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Requirements for the visualization and modeling capabilities in this feature pack |
Requirements |
Overview for Visual Studio feature packs |
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Overview and documentation for the Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate visualization and modeling tools |
Generate Code from Models
UML models can help you create code and tests and describe the architecture and requirements of a system.
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Use the Generate Code command to generate skeleton code from elements on UML class diagrams. You can use the default transformations, or you can write custom transformations to translate UML types into code. .gif "Tip") Tip
If you want to generate other kinds of documents from UML or generate code that has a more indirect relationship between the UML elements and the generated result, then you can still write custom templates to read the model and generate the kind of artifact that you want. For more information, see How to: Generate Files from a UML Model.
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Explore Existing Code
Developers often spend more time understanding existing code than writing it. The code visualization tools in Visual Studio Ultimate can help you visualize major parts of the code, assess its flexibility, and identify problem areas. You can more easily assess the potential cost of proposed changes by tracing the dependencies between parts of the code.
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Create UML class diagrams from existing code. |
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Explore the organization and relationships in C and C++ code by generating dependency graphs. |
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Explore the organization and relationships in ASP.NET Web projects by generating dependency graphs. |
You can also explore .NET code by creating sequence diagrams, dependency graphs and layer diagrams. For more information, see Visualizing Existing Code.
For more information, see:
Use and Manage Model Elements
Import Model Elements from Other Modeling Tools
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For more information, see |
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Import elements from UML sequence diagrams, class diagrams, and use case diagrams as XMI 2.1 files that are exported from other modeling tools. |
For more information, see:
Link from Work Items to Model Elements
Links between model elements and work items can help you track and monitor the progress of work on those elements, for example, on a particular activity or the tests for a use case.
Note
In Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, you can create new work items or link to existing work items from model elements, but not in the other direction. For more information, see How to: Link from Model Elements to Work Items.
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For more information, see |
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Create links and view links from work items to model elements. |
Create, Validate, and Extend Layer Diagrams
Layer diagrams help you visualize the logical dependency structure of your application. To make sure that structural changes are not introduced accidentally, you can validate code against the model on every check-in.
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Create layer diagrams from C or C++ code and validate dependencies. |
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Write code to modify layer diagrams and to validate code against layer diagrams. |
For more information, see:
Requirements
For the most recent requirements and known issues, please see the ReadMe file. To use this feature pack, you must have Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate installed. To use the visualization and modeling capabilities of this feature pack, you must also have the following installed:
To enable |
Make sure the following are installed |
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Support for C or C++ projects |
Visual C# on Visual Studio For more information, see: |
Layer extensibility APIs |
For more information, see Creating Extensions for Layer Diagrams. |
Linking from work items |
Model artifact link type on Team Foundation Server For more information, see Requirements in How to: Link from Work Items to Model Elements. |
External Resources
Blogs
Visual Studio Modeling Feature Pack Available!
Modeling Websites and Native Code
Visualization and Modeling Feature Pack
Videos
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PDC 2009: Code Visualization, UML, and DSLs
Channel 9: Enabling Architects with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010
Channel 9: UML with Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate
Channel 9: Extensibility for Architecture & Modeling Tools in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate
Forums
Visual Studio 2010 Visualization & Modeling Tools
Visual Studio 2010 Visualization & Modeling SDK (DSL Tools)