Metamodel Extension

Properties

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,
BackgroundColor
integer
FF00FF for
magenta
24-bit color value in
RGB format
Translucent
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).