The appearance of DiagramElements is specified by properties. Properties can be added to a DiagramElement, influencing its appearance in different ways. The table below defines a standard set of optional properties: it comprises font family and size as well as line style, thickness, and color. Each property overwrites any existing property of the same type of an enclosing GraphElement. If a property is not set, the DiagramElement utilizes the property of its container GraphElement. Non-standard properties could be added but are not part of any standardization. Properties provide an extension mechanism for adding non-standardized elements to the diagram interchange metamodel.
Table 1 Standardized properties Key Domain Example Description FontFamily string `Times', `Courier' font name FontSize double 11.0 font size in pixel LineStyle string `solid', `dotted' line style LineThickness double 2.0 line thickness in pixel FontColor,
ForegroundColor,
BackgroundColorinteger FF00FF for
magenta24-bit color value in
RGB formatTranslucent boolean true, false see text The property `Translucent' is set to true for GraphElements to indicate that their contained elements can be seen through the background of the containing GraphElement (see sequence diagram).