By default all new class diagrams are set to provide unfiltered class diagram viewing. Unfiltered class diagrams typically suffer from information overload - too much class member detail and too many association lines. The filters view lets you filter down class diagram content to obtain a clearer, more meaningful view of the object oriented structure.
With a class diagram open the filters view can be opened from the toolbar or by right clicking on empty space on a class diagram and selecting Open Filters View.
The filters view provides fast access to a collection of controls which enable coarse and fine control over the content and presentation of class diagram elements. The choose button underneath the name of the diagram style opens a dialog from which you can pick a different diagram style.
AgileJ StructureViews supports three ways of controlling filters - three to avoid the trade-off between the need for quick and accessible filtering on a one-off basis, and deeper, project-specific filtering for reuse across all class diagrams.
Type of filtering | Advantages | Limitations |
---|---|---|
switches |
|
|
override bindings |
|
|
configuration |
|
|
Configuration is not dealt with in this section, which leaves the diagram style, switches and override bindings which appear on the filters view.
The right panel of the filters view is for the selection of the diagram style and the setting of diagram style switches. Diagram styles are explained in full in the configuration section. In order to make use of diagram styles all you need to know at this stage is that a diagram style is a pre-packaged collection of filter and display rules through which you can view a class diagram. Selecting a different diagram style applies filtering and presentation rules to your class diagram as you view it.
In theory, there could be a pre-existing diagram style for each of every possible combination of display rules. However, this would require a great many diagram styles to cover all of the combinations. Also on the right panel, just below the diagram style choose button, the switches allow you to say, on a diagram by diagram basis, how the diagram style should handle options such as visibility or name pattern. The number of switches depends upon the diagram style chosen.
Override bindings are so called because they bind Java element selectors to display settings, and override because they override the bindings in the diagram style. The left panel of the filters view contains a tab panel with tabs for classes, methods, fields, inheritance lines, field lines and dependency lines. Within each of these categories you can add multiple override bindings.
The class diagram you are viewing will then immediately hide all static fields.