Is StarUML dead? [closed]

Question

StarUML is a very powerful, free and easy-to-use UML modeling tool, but it seems the project stopped. Does anyone know what happened? Is it possible to get a new version of it?

Answer 1

I've recently discovered that StarUML2 has just started in beta. Unfortunately, StarUML2 has to be installed on your machine and there's no collaborative mode. I finally decided to import my StarUML projects and reuse the them online in genmymodel. HTH

Answer 2

The last news item is from January, 2008 and there were lots on 2007 so if it isn't dead, it's at least on life support.

If you're looking for an alternative, take a look at Jude Community or ArgoUML.

Answer 3

The last CVS commit in SF was on 2006-08-07. If you go to the Tigris website it says that the project is being moved to SF and the Tigris site will be closed out. Sounds like Tigris is no longer supporting StarUML. Tigris is supporting ArgoUML, how they ever supported two is instersting enough.

So converted to SF and forgotten, I would also add that the Admins on SF are basically the same as the ones listed on Tigris telling me that the list of Admins may be old and not changing. Tigris people - duckbill, hyunsoo, jwnara, niklaus ; SF people hyunsoo, jwnara, niklauslee, plasticduckbill, staruml.

Answer 4

StarUML is the best open source UML Tool

After performing an exhaustive test on every free UML tool I could find, I decided StarUML was the best. Unfortunately, it's missing a few features: PHP Code generation/reverse engineer, and the ability to generate reports and estimates.

BUT DON'T STOP READING YET!

I went digging deeper and found out that StarUML saves project data in a single .uml file. This file is writing in plain old XML. Which means, you can do whatever you want with it because it's in a simple, predictable format. You could feed it to another application, like a PHP application, to generate all kinds of fun stuff, like reports, estimates, put the model data into a database, generate code for whatever language you want, etc. This also means that you can write UML models without even opening StarUML, for automation purposes, because it's just XML.

The other thing, the StarUML interface can be extended through AddIns! I looked in modules/staruml-standard and discovered that most of the files were also in plain, simple XML. I quickly wrote my own add in, and soon had a new menu item for generating PHP code. I also created a profile for PHP and added in a few tagged values, one such being "PHP Method Body", an essential for round-trip engineering (to preserve the method body by pulling it into the StarUML project, to be written back out when you generate the code again).

I still haven't actually hooked the menu items I created to any script, but it looks really simple if you take a peek at how the staruml-standard addin does it. The XML menu item has a script attribute, referencing a .vbs (Visual Basic) file. I looked at one of these .vbs files, ConvCol2Seq.vbs, which converts a Collaboration Diagram to a Sequence Diagram. Down at the bottom, after all the helper functions, the main code begins. In the first few lines of the main code, the script creates an object with "App = CreateObject('StarUML.StarUMLApplication')", and then the script has access to tons of features through the object named "App". My next thought was, "There must be an API, that will tell me how to use these objects!" Sure enough! Google, "staruml api". The developers of StarUML knew exactly what they were doing. Create a solid tool and leave it wide open for expansion. Great work!

So as long as you follow the pattern in the XML, it seems you can do whatever you want.

I wonder if the API includes function for automatically generating graphics for a diagram? If so, I could batch generate graphic files for all diagrams, then write a PHP app to automatically generate documentation, reports and estimates with graphic diagrams included.

So I'd say the StarUML is not dead. It's alive, but just bored (because we are under-utilizing it's abilities).

Some links to get you excited

• StarUML 5.0 Developer Guide — a pretty straight-forward guide for extending StarUML features.
• StarUML 5.0 API Documentation — kind of heavy at first, but useful for accessing StarUML objects within addin scripts.

Answer 5

UPDATE

StarUML seems to be not dead anymore.

After a beta-Test for StarUML 2.0, the new version has just been released (12/29/14). StarUML 2.0 is using a Commercial License and can be purchased on their website, however StarUML 1.0 stills open source under GPL License.

As described on the official website, the main difference is that StarUML 1.0 is not maintained and supported anymore (the project missed sponsors to keep it maintained as open source).

Basically

If you use occasionally UML (without complex features) you can use Star UML 1.0 (or any other free UML software). Otherwise as far I tested StarUML 2.0, some features were added and it seems to be a good product for the price (around 70$ for a personal license).

Answer 6

Just for point of reference, there's a page providing some synopsis about the inactivity, at Wikipedia: it looks like the project stalled in being refactored from Delphi to Java. Of course, it's an open source project and would be available for further revision, inasmuch.

There's been more development in Eclipse UML 2 support since then. There are also some third party UML tools available for Eclipse: some free, some not. MyClipse has some UML support, for example, it's not free, but is available also supporting UML 2. Other tools are available, of course - those simply caught my own attention, this evening.